A plea to Mr Zuma

April 18th, 2009

This is a plea to Jacob Zuma: seize the moment of the election and your ascendancy to the presidency to put your relationship with the media on a new footing. You cannot, you simply cannot, begin your presidency suing editors, newspapers, writers and cartoonists.

It was announced this week that you are suing Simon Jenkins, author, columnist and former editor of The Times of London, for something he wrote in The Guardian. I can see how infuriating his words must have been for you: nobody likes being dismissed in the way he did you, with contempt and more than a little cultural snobbery. Not to mention evoking accusations against which were dismissed in the courts.
But as president, you have to rise above this, you have to learn not to take the bait, you have, to put it plainly, to be presidential. And that means you can’t spend you time and taxpayers’ money taking on your critics in the courts, no matter how much they insult you.

If you think you are going to teach them a lesson, as your statement implies, you are wrong. Your lawyers in London said the following on your behalf: “”The media should report accurately and honestly. It is not fair that they should print lies, distort or exaggerate issues merely for the sake of sensationalism and increased revenue.

“How can they be allowed to damage a person’s reputation in this way? The world needs a media that all people can rely on, even in the United Kingdom. In this matter I was obliged to act where I had been wronged.”

Whether you are right or wrong, Mr Zuma, you will make a fool of yourself taking this on in court and inviting them to explore in open sessions all the allegations, suggestions, rumours and evidence ever made against you. And, like it or not, there are a few from a life which has been lived to the full.
They will go into your history, your record and all the cases against you. The rape aquittal will be repeated again and again in the process, by all the media covering the case. The shower will become permanently attached to your nut. Zapiro’s fame will spread.

After a long, nasty battle, you may win. Or you may lose. You, better than most, know that courts are unpredictable places. You can lose on a technicality. You can get tripped up. You will have to go and give evidence in London, and be cross-examined by the best of British barristers, and this will be unseemly for a president.

I suspect that even if you win, it will by Pyrrhic.

In this new job you are about to be appointed to, you have to act for the good of the country, not your own reputation and ego. Will it be good for the country for the president to spend his time squabbling with foreign journalists and newspapers?

I think not.

If you want to prove these critics wrong, do it in a presidential way: by focussing on the difficult and pressing job at hand. If you are a successful president, all of this will soon seem silly and these matters will be forgotten. Rise above the shower on your head, and it will soon look out of place.

You will have in your hands a great deal of power and resources. You can dissipate it by tilting at windmills, or you can do what you are promising to do in your campaign: address the needs of the poor in our country.

For heaven’s sake, that is a tough enough job. You will be under enough pressure as it is. Don’t take on fights you can avoid.

This new job requires a thick skin. People are going to say a lot of things about you, fair and unfair. If you think you can stop them, you are mistaken. You have chosen a job which makes you accountable to the public, which opens you to the most vigorous and taxing scrutiny. People are going to argue and debate everything that has happened in your life, and try and make you account for things you have done.

They will ask again and again if you were guilty of misogyny. They will ask you about Thami Zulu and how he was detained, tortured and died of poisoning under your watch. They will ask you about that meeting you held with the arms suppliers. They will ask you about all the money given or loaned to you by friends who also happened to be tendering for government business.

They are entitled to, I am afraid. They would not be doing their job if they didn’t. If you don’t want these questions asked, you must not run for president.

If you let it get to you, you will diminish your presidency. If you rise above it, then your standing and dignity will be enhanced. And you can get on with important things, like making sure you choose the best possible cabinet, and fire one or two members a year just to keep the others on their toes.
Now there is an idea worth discussing.

Meanwhile, the Guardian case is just one that you are taking on. You are also suing a number of local newspapers and even the cartoonist Zapiro.

Are you really going to argue that cartoonists must be fair? And will you try and apply this to all humourists? Do you think you will see an end to rude and mocking jokes about you?
It ‘aint gonna happen, Mr Zuma.

Your predecessor, President Mbeki, may his dear political soul rest in peace, damaged himself repeatedly by undertaking a high-brow critique of the media, or getting his intellectual henchmen to do it. Whether his criticism was valid is irrelevant. It is not the role of a president to be a media critic.
For heavens sake, we have enough of those as it is.

A president has to live with, work with, and use the media. He has to try and make it communicate what he wants communicated, and he has try and use it to watch and participate in discussion, debate, ideas and suggestions.

Did you notice how President Barack Obama started his term of office? He gave an interview to an Arab television station, making everyone sit up and think, and he invited all the rightwing pundits – those who had been most abusive towards him in his campaign – to lunch with him. Disarming, wasn’t it? Presidential, to be sure.

And Mr Sarkozy, in Paris? He is dishing out Euro600-m to help newspapers in trouble, even those who are roasting him. He is giving a free subscription to all 18-year-olds of the newspaper of their choice. That’s because he sees the importance of the newspapers, putting the national interest above even his oversized ego.

The media is a tool that you can put to use if you do it with skill and the kind of political savvy you have shown in your campaign. Whether you like it or not, it is through the media you will relate to most of your audience. The massive crowd you will probably get on the your election-eve, multi-city mass rally will – at very best – be just a small fraction of those who read newspapers every day, let alone those who will take it in s it is filtered through radio and television.

The excellent thing is that your ascendancy to the presidency gives you a chance to put your relationship with the media on a new footing.

That does not mean you have to just forgive those who have lambasted you, just as they don’t need to forgive you. But it does mean you can try and clean the slate by offering to drop the threats and legal actions against the media in exchange for fair treatment or for a breathing space in your first 100 days in office so that you can show what you can do.

You will be surprised at how easily much of the media can be flattered into working with you rather than against you. Not all the media – thank goodness, for that would be disastrous - but at least enough for it to be worth your while.

Be a president, Mr President. Leave the media criticism to those who have nothing better to do. Like me.

*This column first appeared in Beeld, 18 April 09

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Print