An Africa-wide view of media regulation

April 17th, 2011

There are a lot of differences in media across Africa, and a wide range of media regulation systems in this big continent. But when media people from 21 African countries got together at Wits University last week, there were two things that brought swift consensus.

The first was a serious one: that everyone supported self-regulation for the media, and wanted to keep governments away from interfering in issues of content. Participants were not just journalists, but regulators, lawyers, academics and media activists – a range of people who only had in common their belief that the free flow of information was the fuel of democracy.

The second point of easy agreement came in form of loud guffaws when the ANC proclaimed that they would never restrict media freedom because the organization had a long history of fighting for it and was responsible for our constitution that guaranteed it. If there ever was a notion that was sure to bring a smile to the face of media people across the continent, it is that you can trust those in power because of things they said and did before they got to power.

It did not help when the same ANC representative, Nat Kekana, told us that people had “too much information” and the ANC was “too open”. This is like saying citizens have too much power, and the ANC was too accountable – ideas fundamentally foreign to our constitution.

Representatives of many countries reported a rising tide of hostility towards the media and a move by a number of governments to reverse the gains made in media freedom in the democratization wave of the early 1990s.

Perhaps only Tanzania could report that their self-regulation system was working well enough to prevent government from interfering. But Botswana, Ghana and Nigeria were among those who told us of a push to displace self-regulation with more direct government control – much like we have been seeing in South Africa.

A good self-regulation system, it was argued, is built out of a strong, editorially independent media which could develop and protected a rich public sphere in which citizens could engage in open debate and discussion. This also required effective access to information legislation, which empowered citizens to get the information they needed from authorities. Many reported frustrations in getting such laws on to their books and working effectively.

In a powerful keynote speech, former Constitutional Court Judge Kate O’Regan told how courts internationally are increasingly moving to use journalists’ codes as the basis for determining what was “responsible publication”. Just as with doctors or lawyers, courts would use the rules established by journalists themselves to determine what was reasonable for them to publish.

Everything points to the need for solid, effective codes of conduct which are well-entrenched in journalistic practice.

The meeting – hosted by the SA National Editors Forum and Wits Journalism – passed what was quickly dubbed the “Wits Declaration”. It called for support for self-regulation, the importance of access to information, a commitment to the responsibilities that come with free expression and the highest professional standards and a call on African Union members to abide by their media freedom obligations.

The one area that everyone accepted had to be curtailed in some way was hate speech. The lesson of Kenya’s post-election violence was how the media could be abused to encourage hatred that led to killings.

On the other hand, the recent lesson of Rwanda was that hate speech legislation was also easily abused by governments to nail their critics. Last year editor Agnes Uwimama Nkusi was sentenced to 17 years and reporter Saidath Mukakibi for seven years for inciting disobedience, causing divisions and denying the 1994 genocide after they compared President Paul Kgame to Hitler.

That would have provided the cue for us to talk about how we deal with race in South African speech, and whether our rambunctious democracy is too noisy (as Kekana was suggesting) or just the way democracy is (as O’Regan was suggesting). But government spokesman Jimmy Manyi cancelled his appearance, as did his deputy and surrogate apologizer, Vusi Mona. Pity.

*This column first appeared in Business Day, 16 March 2011

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber