Journalists in the traditional media dealt with their ethics through a set of established rules and practices. We should not accept gifts or freebies, or allow a conflict of interest in stories we cover. We should be immunised from the influence of advertisers. We should separate commentary and news reporting and convey the views of all parties to a story. The watchwords were objectivity and fairness, and these values were reflected in codes of conduct and newsroom rituals.
Continue Reading January 31st, 2012
Amidst the furore over inappropriate front pages, it is worth noting a smart but barely noticed move from East London’s Daily Dispatch.
Continue Reading August 31st, 2011
Eric Miyeni is an irritating distraction. This former columnist has become a leading figure in the attempt to drag our national debate to the lowest depths, to trade in personal abuse and low-level threats imbued with a deep anti-intellectualism.
Continue Reading August 7th, 2011
THESE are glorious days for journalism. We celebrate the end of the Rupert Murdoch era, in which he systematically degraded what we do and wielded a malign influence in London and Washington. His corruptive hold over the British establishment is broken, and this can only lead to a waning of his power and influence in the media world.
Continue Reading July 15th, 2011
WHY is Jimmy Manyi trying to steal my job? He is government spokesman, but from everything he says it is clear he really wants to be a media critic. That’s my job. Since he is trying to do my job, I will have a shot at thinking about what I would do if I had his.
Continue Reading June 23rd, 2011
Every year this time, a group of us sit down and study the best journalism of the year. We are judging the Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism, and it allows us a rare chance to focus on the top 5% of our reporting.
Continue Reading April 17th, 2011
That crumpling sound you are hearing is the sound of knees jerking. It is the traditional soundtrack for much of our journalism, but it has been particularly loud in recent weeks on one particular story.
Continue Reading April 17th, 2011
An SAfm producer called me yesterday to ask if I would join them on their Sunday media programme - on Human Rights Day - to talk with Ashraf Garda about media infringements of peoples’ rights. Isn’t that interesting? The problem is framed purely as media infringing rights, and there is no desire to talk about the overwhelming majority of times when the media protected, promoted and encouraged peoples’ rights.
Continue Reading March 19th, 2011
The ANC were notably absent from this week’s Press Council public hearings. Having called for reform of the Council, and having welcomed the Council’s move to open up a public debate, the ANC did not make any submissions and did not even send anyone along to listen. They could not be bothered to show even perfunctory interest.
Continue Reading February 18th, 2011
The Democratic Alliance held the high ground on media freedom - and then gave it away when they “blacklisted” a journalist.
Continue Reading February 18th, 2011
The appointment of the outspoken Jimmy Manyi to the joint task of head of the Government Communications and Information Service (GCIS) and chief government spokesperson is an unexpected one. There are a number of reasons for this.
Continue Reading February 3rd, 2011
It is worth parsing Jackson Mthembu’s latest attack on the Mail & Guardian, which you can find on politicsweb.
Continue Reading September 5th, 2010
The darkest of clouds hangs over South African journalism this week, following the admission by a former Cape Argus reporter that he took money from an ANC politician to assist in his intra-party battles.
Continue Reading July 14th, 2010
Previous Posts
Anton Harber: Media
Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio
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)
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)
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