» The General is on the march

The General is on the march

November 6th, 2009

Communication Minister Siphiwe Nyanda’s response in Business Day to my criticism of the new Public Service Broadcasting Bill is a disappointment, to say the very least. He resorts to the tired old cliches of declaring those who criticise his Bill to be resistant to change and unpatriotic.

Interestingly, he does not deal much with the substance of the criticism. He says this Bill is just a discussion document, even though nowhere on the document does it say this is a draft Bill - and he has made it clear he wants to slam this through parliament quickly. He left only a few weeks between people responding to his discussion document and the publication of this major Bill, which can only mean that his officials barely bothered to read the input as they had the Bill written and prepared to go.

On the major charge - that the Bill gives him huge powers to interfere in the SABC and Icasa, and undermines the role and independence of these organisations - he offers us is his word that he does not want to interfere and respects their independence. By why would he be giving himself powers that he does not want to use? The point of a law is to make the rules so that we don’t have to rely on promises and assurances.

The General says we are unpatriotic not to see the fine intentions of the Bill. All I can say is that we would have to be fools to take the intentions as stated at face value, when the Bill appears to do things entirely at odds with those stated intentions.

The General also ridicules those who suggest the Bill might undermine the independence of community radio stations by enforcing a partnership with local municipalities. His reason? If the government wanted to impose on community stations, it could do so in other ways, because it gives them financial support, he says.

This is hardly convincing, General Minister (or is it Minister General?). Please engage with the substance of the Bill and tell us what we are to understand the relevant paragraph of the Bill. Section 25 (quoted word-for-word, I promise) tells us that community stations “shall be partnership with municipalities…” and this partnership shall include “availability of information about development to by local municipalities”.

Legal commentator Pierre de Vos has pointed out that the authors of the Bill have not read the constitution. Because it deals with tax issues, it is a money bill, and such a bill can only be introduced by the Treasury and must deal only with money issues. Also, it probably contravenes the constitutional protection for the independent broadcasting regulator.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Media regulation

1 Comment Add your own

1. donald | November 25th, 2009 at 2:10 pm

I guess that’s the beginning of political interference . what does this mean for the tax payer and the independence of the SABC and ICASA? After watching interface the Minister assured the nation that interference will not occcur but I disagree because surely the government will do anything to protect it’s senior members involved in corruption.

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Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
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Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)

(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)

“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.

“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report

“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)

Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011

Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn

Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.

What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)