The Harbinger


Zuma’s privacy - an oxymoron?

January 16th, 2009

Is ANC president Jacob Zuma’s polygamy a private matter? The ANC said it was this week, when questioned about his latest marriage plans. But I am not so sure.

A Cape Town paper ran a piece about it and most commentators disagreed with my view that he forfeited a great deal of privacy when he chooses to run for president. So let me tease the argument out a bit.

First, let me say that I think it is a good thing that there is general respect for the private lives of our politicians and we do not have the kind of free-for-all you see in places like the US. Helen Suzman, for example, enjoyed the discretion of many journalists who knew that her private life was more interesting than it seemed, for decades. I think the media has to justify intrusion, and that is a good thing.

I believe intrusion is justified when it reflects on the values, conduct or integrity of a public figure. For example, if it shows hypocrisy, such as revealing that a homophobe has had homosexual relationships, then it is fair game. If it shows a gender equality campaigner to have a dubious attitude to the other sex, then that is of public interest. But these are easy cases.

More complex is when it is about values. Zuma has made personal choices which do speak to his values and attitudes. Polygamy is controversial in a society committed to gender equality. So is having 17 or 18 children (nobody seems quite sure how many there are, if you ready Jeremy Gordin’s biography), particularly when the evidence suggests that you may have been compromised (to put it politely) by an occasional shortage of the funds needed to maintain such a lifestyle.

I think you have to expect discussion and debate on these matters. If you set yourself up as a potential role model, then expect an examination of the model. Do we want to be telling young people that it is a good thing to have dozens of children? Or are there cautionary remarks one might want to offer? These things do need, at the least, to be debated.

Which leads us to the fact that the current national president, Kgalema Motlanthe, is famously discreet about his wife. She is, to all intents and purposes, invisible. We do not, it seems, have a first lady, or at least not one whose name and face we know. I think this is fine, if it is the way he wants it. It would only be of public interest if something emerged which reflected on his integrity, and nobody has suggested that at all.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Media regulation

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Anton Harber: Media

Anton Harber

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Among the main results from the World Association of Newspaper’s Newsroom Barometer (a survey of 700 editors and senior news execs in 120 countries) for this year:
- 86% believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm, and 83% believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.
- Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.
- A plurality - 44% - believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.
- A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year’s survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure. - From Editors’ Weblog

There is a crisis in trust and communication between the British public and the mainstream media, a new report has concluded. The gulf between public expectations of news provision and the actual nature of articles, which oscillate between esoteric or irresponsible, leaves readers feeling confused and excluded.
The report, entitled ‘Public Trust In The News’ was conducted by researchers from Manchester and Leeds Universities and was published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. - From Editors Weblog

Reflections on Journalism in the Transition to Democracy - Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2004).

Journalism in the Age of the Market
- Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture, Centre for Civil Society, University of KZN, Aug 2002

The Untimely Death of SA’s Finest Daily - Sunday Times, May 2005

“Two Newspapers, Two Nations? The Media and the Xenophobic Violence” from Go Home or Die Here, edited by Shireen Hassim Tawana Kupe and Eric Worby (WUP, 2008)

Remarks at Goedgedacht Forum, October 2008

The rise of social network journalism - From The 2009 Flux Trend Review (Macmillan, 2008)

A recent piece by me on the Zapiro cartoon row which appeared in Comment is Free, a Guardian blog.

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