When the media dances to Umshini Wami

I think Jacob Zuma has a big future as a media super star. In fact, I think his presidency is going to be a sort of peak in term of the government’s relations with the media. It is a very natural development.

Imagine yourself being a shareholder at one of the media monopolies where your job is to fleece the government of public money through advertising and marketing, tenders and other contracts.

Your first job will be to make sure that no know-all editor annoys the ANC or rubs the president the wrong way. Here is a brilliant strategy that has seen the removal and elimination of anti-Zuma editors and other critical analysts: let us change our attitude, now, to make Zuma the new darling of the media!

After all, not only has acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority Mokotedi Mpshe dropped all the charges, the man has set the pace for a change of attitude to Zuma from the media. Of course, the majority population is going to vote for Zuma. He will then become president. And for shareholders to get all the money they have been getting from government, they have to put editors who know how to behave, so to speak.

It is not Zuma who is going to be a symbolic political figure head but editors who are going to continue to be tokens who listen to their shareholders and other profit mongers. In fact, after Zuma’s inauguration as the new president, the editors and analysts are only expected to write stories that will not make shareholders lose business but deepen ties with the government.

And they know it themselves because editors or so-called new age “general managers” of newspapers are people who are expected to possess MBAs. The thing about this breed of professionals is that, often, they do not know anything except that which somebody else tells them, especially the boss who pays their fat salaries.

I mean, when you are an editor in the 21st century – I’ve done it actually – it’s a very odd experience: it’s like you are a 7-year-old child who seeks approval and can only be at your best when you do as your bosses tell you. Yes, you must obey and conform! Nothing original is expected to come out of your own head.

The words that come from your powerful and influential pen or PC have all been spelt out by shareholders who know what is best for readers. And now that Zuma is smiling and dancing his way to the Union Buildings, the editors now have to change their approach to the biggest story of the last ten years.

Of course, there will be a few critical journalists from Europe and America who will continue to write negative stories that pretend to try to embarrass Zuma. This will be an act to keep up the pretence that the media are a powerful and influential pillar of democracy and nobody tells it what to write.

The truth of the matter is less than a handful of journalists will be allowed to continue to write the media-created truth that has turned out to be lies. Well, if the media does not change its attitude towards the new president, the shareholders know that government can simply withdraw advertising and contracts to printing houses, something that is long overdue.

The global economic meltdown will not come from the New York Stock Exchange but from the Union Buildings or Luthuli House, if you like, were that to happen. So, the shareholders will, of themselves, begin removing editors and analysts who have been a problem. After all, they know better that newspapers have never been about the pursuit of the truth but protecting economic interests.

If you look around, you will realise that some of the problematic editors are slowly being removed and the analysts are changing their tune. Apply your thinking cap when you read newspapers today and the new truth will jump at you.

Of course, big business is not going to make money unless it has a good relationship with the government. Now we are watching the shareholders falling over themselves as they tell their editors to tell us what the people have always known: Zuma is the most popular leader in the African continent today.

In fact, the editors have started to tell us that “he is creating a revolution”, he is “the most amazing leader since Nelson Mandela,” and those like Zapiro who have criticized him “have been an embarrassment to the media”.

And you have to pretend that Zuma is not aware of this sudden change. Well, some of us who recognise the signs of this new change in attitude cannot help ourselves but laugh last. But we should not have too long to wait because newspapers in this country have never been about being on the side of the poor underdog.

And I think Zuma is going to have the media on his side, now, because they think now that he is the new big man he has changed overnight to become a top dog. I must say when one examines how the media has treated Zuma over the last seven or eight years, it is extremely difficult to hide the fact that many of the editors and so-called analysts have not the faintest idea of how the media operates.

Whenever they wrote what they wrote about Zuma, they were simply carrying out money making orders to achieve high sales. In fact, it was not lies when the NPA says that the charges have to be dropped because all this concoction was manufactured by people opposed to Zuma going to the Union Buildings.

However, it is interesting to note that the players with sinister agendas always made sure that they timed their leaks in such a way that the editors and analysts would be the first to bite. The editors played along because they knew that the shareholders knew that playing up the lies would generate sales and keep the public glued to news. There was no inclination to ask: what was in it for those who kept on leaking the news to hand-selected editors and analysts? So, all the fuss about whether Zuma is a good man or a bad man is going to come to an end pretty soon.

Why the change of attitude?

The whole thing is about a media that is only interested in compliant editors and analysts who help shareholders fleece the government through advertising contracts and tenders. It is very striking to see how the editors and analysts perceived to be hyper-critical are beginning to disappear.

Of course, Zuma is going to change this country not because he is a media-created fantastic charismatic figure that everybody loves but because he is a former under dog himself. Okay his job is only starting now and it is good that he has asked for only one term.

No African president has put him under such tremendous pressure to deliver to the people in such a short space of time. And Zuma knows this because he is no fool.

Luckily, in the change of attitude in the media, for example, the positive stories that are going to come will not be manufactured. The editors and analysts will, for the first time, be telling it like it is because not only has Zuma learnt from his mistakes, if he has any, but the man cannot afford not to live up to his promises to the people or leave a rich ANC legacy.

In a way, he who laughs last laughs best.

Yes, the shareholders have been laughing all the way to the bank. Well, they have long institutionalized money mongering, especially robbing government of the money that should be going to the people.

The big question is: how about the editors?

Well, we will not have long to wait now that Zuma has invited them to become part of the solution by joining the ANC.

But the only thing to watch in the next few days is how the media’s attitude has changed. Of course, if you change the way you look at Zuma, the way Zuma looks changes too. It will be quite a drama to watch how the shareholders change the way the editors … er, look at Zuma.