A UCT student has been arrested, had his house searched and been questioned about his political affiliations after gesturing at President Jacob Zuma’s convoy of vehicles, IOL reports. Remember this incident, because if the blue-light brigade are not pulled up for it, we will recall it as a turning point in freedom of expression and democracy.
Continue Reading Add comment February 17th, 2010
Fortunately, good sense has prevailed in the sage of the subpoena to force eTV to identify the criminals they recently interviewed. The police have reportedly agreed to follow the path of consultation and conflict-avoidance set out in the 1999 agreement between government and editors.
Continue Reading Add comment January 26th, 2010
These days I seem to get published more in Afrikaans than English. For Rapport, on Sunday, I wrote about my marriage … and Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act.
Continue Reading 1 comment January 25th, 2010
In Beeld this Saturday, I wrote of the implications of the Minister of Communications publishing what was the worst piece of draft legislation I have seen ever. What does it mean if one puts out a scrappy, contradictory, ill-considered Bill that has not even been discussed with your cabinet colleagues?
Continue Reading Add comment January 25th, 2010
The police are wrong to accuse eTV of promoting criminality or harbouring criminals with their interview of two unidentified men who promised violence and murder during the 2010 World Cup. They are also foolish to subpoena the station.
Continue Reading 1 comment January 18th, 2010
Communication Minister Siphiwe Nyanda’s response 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.
Continue Reading 1 comment November 6th, 2009
The Public Broadcasting Bill published this week contains some good things, some bad things and some very bad things. If it is adopted in its current form, it will take us a away from public broadcasting and back towards state broadcasting again.
Continue Reading 1 comment October 31st, 2009
The Department of Communications responded firmly to the auditor-general’s report into the SABC.
The report showed that there appears to have been wild and uninhibited pilfering of the SABC coffers under former Group CEO Dali Mpofu and financial director Robin Nicholson (still, incidentally, the man with the keys to the safe). One’s immediate response was that at last someone was showing strong leadership at the department and taking a firm hand. But the measures they proposed were a direct move to usurp the role of the new SABC board and take control into the Ministry.
Continue Reading Add comment October 31st, 2009
How parliament chose its candidates for the SABC board - and the arm wrestling that went on behind-the-scenes - tells us a lot about power in this society, and how it is exercised.
Continue Reading Add comment September 17th, 2009
Running the SABC is like being Springbok rugby coach. Or manager of Chiefs. Or a local police commander, Everyone knows how to do it, and knows better than the person doing it, and has no problem telling them how they should be doing it. It is the breeding ground of that archetypal South African, the armchair expert.
Continue Reading 1 comment September 3rd, 2009
The SOS (Save our SABC) Campaign has launched a petition to push for the board selection process to be more transparent and accountable. They have hit the nail on the head, I would say.
Continue Reading Add comment July 20th, 2009
If we have learnt anything in the last two years in relation the SABC, it is that how you appoint the board is as important as who you appoint. The parliamentary committee which recommends candidates, it seems, has not taken on board this very basic lesson.
Continue Reading Add comment July 3rd, 2009
It is certainly an appropriate time to be asking about the limits of free speech, and the right of people to use words and phrases which hurt others, and which may upset their sense of dignity.
Continue Reading Add comment June 8th, 2009
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.
