Who is the real conservative?

September 12th, 2007

SABC boss Dali Mpofu called me a “rightwing conservative�. Last time we had a public disagreement he called me an “ultra-rightwinger�. Let me spell out a few things about myself, so you can judge.

I believe in a public broadcaster, and I would like it to get greater state support and become less dependent on advertising so it is freed from the commercial constraints which face most media. The public broadcaster should be able to do many more things which commercial media can’t do - those things that may not make strict business sense but make for good journalism, education and public debate. I believe the public broadcaster should be setting the standards for journalism in this country and thereby shaping the national agenda.

I believe the government should, through the Media Development and Democracy Agency, be putting more resources into growing community media. Small, local media empowers communities and is the bedrock of media diversity, feeding the bigger national media. We need more of it, and the government’s role should be to enable and stimulate it, although at arm’s length.

I support local content regulations and would like to see them gradually increased further to promote local drama, music and our indigenous cultural industry.

I believe we need more media in more of our official languages and the government should be subsidising this through channels such as the Pan South African Language Board.

I believe the government should be closely watching the development or potential development of media monopolies, or over-powerful media groups, in order to protect and encourage diversity.

I believe we need to strengthen the broadcasting and telecoms regulator and take the power of appointment of councillors away from the Minister, who has too great an influence on this body. I believe we should encourage them to license more television and radio stations to increase competition and choice.

I believe the state should be much more aggressive and interventionist in promoting cheap broadband access for all South Africans. We cannot fully exercise our economic and political rights without internet availability, and the discrepancies in access are exacerbating the inequalities in our society.

I believe in a journalism which is fiercely independent, critical and outspoken. I don’t care much whether stories are positive or negative, but I do care if they are insightful, probing, informative and thought-provoking. I believe journalists are there to prod us into thinking about things, to cause trouble for the complacent, and to get up the noses of anyone with power and authority. I believe that patriotic journalism is when we play a role in ensuring that power is not abused and that political and financial power is wielded with accountability and transparency. I believe that we practice developmental journalism not when we spend our time telling everyone what good things government, business or NGOs are doing, but when we ask tough questions on behalf of those who can’t ask themselves, and demand proper answers.

These are all views I have expressed from time to time in my writings. You can decide whether these are the views of a right-winger.

But my concern is not Mpofu’s accuracy, nor that he insulted me. Journalists need a thick skin and must take as well as they give. But there are certain labels which are not just rude but dangerous, because they set you up for more serious attack.
In the 1950s in the US, calling someone a “leftwing fellow-traveller� was enough to ensure they lost their jobs and suffered social isolation. Today, calling someone an Islamic terrorist in the US is enough to justify locking them up without trial indefinitely and subjecting them to “severe physical pressure�. In this country, in the 1980s, calling someone a communist was enough to merit long periods of detention without trial.

Calling someone an “enemy of the people� is, on the face of it, a meaningless jibe. But in the current South African context, it is the way to say they are a danger to our new democracy, not worthy of consideration as normal citizens, and fair game. When Dali Mpofu said this of the country’s newspaper editors, he was setting up a justification for those eager to restrict or even attack the media.

Perhaps I can venture a definition of a real conservative in the context of South African media: someone who thinks the SABC should pay obeisance to power rather than challenge it. That is true-blue conservatism.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Media regulation, Radio, TV