The text below is a slightly edited version of the author’s remarks to the M20 Media Freedom Summit held online in Delhi on September 6, 2023 by the M20 Organising Committee, which comprises 11 editors from India and a former judge of the Supreme Court.
The media in South Africa is protected by the Constitution of the Republic, and the right to freedom of expression is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
For the most part, in the post-democratic South Africa, the media has been able to operate unhindered – doing the job of holding power to account and reporting without fear or favour. In this democratic dispensation, it is rare to hear of reporters arrested for being overly critical of those in power. But the police do sometimes fail to protect them when exposed to violence or when they are attacked, even in public.
In fact, in recent years, we have seen a rise in journalist who are being subjected to physical and verbal threats and harassment, both in person and especially on social media.
This is particularly prevalent in the lead up to elective conferences of political parties as well as the run up to elections.
These attacks are from all corners – politicians, cabinet ministers, the police (who are at times heavy-handed in the way they treat the media at crime scenes).
You see how some politicians and even cabinet ministers start smear campaigns targeting specific journalists (or group of senior journalists who are particularly critical) on social media and then you have their supporters coming for them by harassing them, intimidating, and even threatening them. Some politicians place a “ban” on some reporters covering their rallies or press conferences because their reporting is critical of them. This is especially a problem among opposition political parties. We are seeing more of this and not enough pushback from others outside of the media landscape. Their supporters often target these reporters on social media, and it is a lot to have to endure.
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Female journalists are more prone to these attacks.
An example of this was a case that has really tested media freedom in our country. This was the first ever private prosecution of a journalist by the former president Jacob Zuma, who attempted to have her prosecuted for reporting on his court case. He first tried the conventional route, but the prosecuting authority declined to prosecute, and then he took the route of private prosecution.
Fortunately, he did not succeed, and the high court ruled that it has the hallmarks of a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) and therefore constituted an abuse of process. So, we were quite happy that the high court ruled this way but the mere fact that someone powerful could take the route of private prosecution and putting a journalist in the dock was a big problem for us.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Unfortunately, the courts are being used or perhaps abused, more often by those in authority or even by businesspeople wanting to muzzle the press, and this is a big challenge for us in the media industry because it is costly having to defend these cases and continuously having to come up with some kind of support. We see this as an attempt to muzzle the industry.
Like some our colleagues elsewhere have mentioned, media houses are battling to stay afloat with print figures dwindling. There is revenue loss, sales revenue dwindling and a particular challenge of the public in general which is battling to hold their heads above water – and thus can’t afford subscriptions. We’ve employed paywalls and pushed digital subscriptions but the uptake is not really as great as we would like. For some people, it’s a case of do you buy a loaf of bread or do you pay a subscription, and I think that’s where radio becomes a particularly popular medium in South Africa.
This is a big challenge, and it has led to shrinking newsrooms, over reliance on smaller teams and this has created mental health challenges because fewer people are having to take on more work – and of course, the effects of having smaller newsrooms means the standard of reporting has deteriorated.
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We have noted increased intimidation and harassment of reporters while out in the field, and the problem of overly punitive legislation that is hampering our abilities to report. At times, gaining access to information is particularly difficult and this leads to over-reliance on leaked reports. This is a big problem when it comes to transparency.
Trust in the media in South Africa has waned over the years – this is largely because of the fake news phenomenon, but also because of experienced media practitioners and analysts going on to later join political parties or working for the government because the salaries in the media (particularly smaller media houses) are not competitive.
The challenges I have mentioned above have been raised – at times by the individual media houses or championed through the South African National Editor’s Forum (SANEF). Through SANEF, we have engaged with the ministers of police, ministers in the presidency, and others, but there has not been much improvement in this regard. And the concern with this is that the industry in general is struggling in South Africa and it is shrinking.
Rochelle de Kock is Editor of The Herald and Weekend Post in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.