MEDIACRACY AND DEMOCRACY, WHO IS WHO? Wednesday, 24 February 2010 By: Kaizer Mohau
Recent developments in the country especially in terms of media coverage and the role it plays in the process of deepening our democracy, raises a number of difficult to answer questions. During the ANCYL press conference held recently in Johannesburg, Cde Julius Malema raised an important question of journalists and their relationship with politicians. While my document would jump the “sleeping” part but it will focus on the political role the media plays in ensuring its influence on the public opinion in a range of issues and instances. It will never be forgotten that during the Thabo Mbeki presidency the media was deeply used against those who disagreed with the President and his political stooges in the form of what the Central Committee of the SACP defined as the 1996 class project. This usage and abuse of the media took its most brutal angle when senior editors were called into an off-the-record press briefing by Bulelani Ngcuka and co. against the current President of the African National Congress and government, Cde President Jacob Zuma. At this briefing the editors were informed of ongoing investigations against Cde President Jacob Zuma and the fact that considering the stage of investigations by then, Cde Jacob Zuma could not be charged and arrested. Strategically, Bulelani and his handlers knew that what was important was never to arrest and charge Cde Jacob Zuma, but they knew that the media is very influential in shaping and directing the public opinion especially when an individual is involved. So the issue was to create a negative view and understanding about Cde Jacob Zuma – his character, his persona and his leadership were subjected and imprisoned to doubts and concerns – thus creating a clear road for Thabo Mbeki’s third term presidency in the near future. Considering the factual reality that members of the ANC, its Alliance partners and general public quickly discovered these dirty and brutal intentions by the anti – revolution gangsters – that is why in the very short space of time the media and its handlers in the Thabo Mbeki’s office and taverns went for a more dangerous and silly strategy of buying people to claim the rape case against the then Deputy President of the ANC and the country. In this context the tactical intention was to remove Cde Jacob Zuma from the ANC leadership re-affirming and justifying his removal from the Presidency as the then Deputy President. The Mbeki faction was initially correctly defeated during the National General Council in Pretoria at the Pretoria University - that is when Terror Lekota was reminded that “We are here to tell you that the strength of the ANC is in its Branches”, this was the final position we took in our rejection of the suggestion by the then National Working Committee to ask Cde Jacob Zuma to resign. In our view to resign for Cde Jacob Zuma was to accept guilty before appearing in the court of law – in fact the media was invited more than it has ever been so that it reports extensively on their wrongly wished intentions. The likes of Justice Malala, Sophie “Ngonyama” Mokwena, and many others were the most happy in expectation journalists not forgetting Nkepile Mabuse, Deborah Patta and their bosses and handlers. Accordingly, the Mail and Guardian was operating like Thabo Mbeki’s diary book – they behaved as the most closet journalists to the President even to make jokes about Cde Jacob Zuma and many others. The media cannot today tell us that it only did its job because its job does not include compromising the democratic rights of individuals in favour of political agendas- that is why sometimes during this difficult period in the life and history of the ANC a number of journalists were deployed in the President office as communication officers – amongst those is Mmaleratro Tshega from Etv and many others from the SABC and newspapers. While we are not intending to condemn these deployments but we see them not in isolation from what we believe was part of the media playing a political and faction agenda. Many times during his court appearance Cde Jacob Zuma, the media claimed that only less than 50 people are at the court protesting against his prosecution – but the media knew that it was not telling the truth and this was proved by CNN reporters only unfortunately the majority of South Africans did not watch the CNN. The media was proved again wrong practically for the first time during the final stages of the rape trial when it had to report that more 80 000 people came to court to support Cde Jacob Zuma. There was never an innocent media house in this country that did not do us wrong during that time, perhaps partly the reason is that in the most the media uses other media to gather information and make news – this is clear when you are listening to the community radios – they at all times reporting news which they read from the newspapers and listen to other radio stations. It was during the above period in which we developed an undiluted interest in how the media works and who controls it – thus I am not shocked or surprised at the manner in which the media deals with issues affecting our movement including affecting the ANCYL President. In as much as I do not share the same view regarding the so-called leftwing conspiracy I deeply agree with Cde Julius Malema that the media is fond of undermining anything that is linked to the current ANC leadership and Cde Jacob Zuma in particular. Like the apartheid media houses, the current media houses and their character reflect that they are not satisfied with the Polokwane outcomes and therefore they will make sure that their master comes back to the palace come 2012, a dream I will never wish to dream. I find it difficult to understand as to why does the ANCYL assist the media to undermine it – accusing leading cadres of the movement in the manner it does the YL plays in the hands of the media and unaware it is helping the media to compromise the integrity and revolutionary character of the YL. It is one thing to debate issues of political, economic, historical and ideological importance like the nationalisation question but it is absolutely a different matter to debate messiahs and false prophets – Perhaps, leaders in the movement must learn their public speaking methods so that they do not assist our enemies to divide us further. It is very low and crookest to suggest that the Youth League agrees with Willie Madisha and Phillip Dexter all of a sudden after the Polokwane victory – are we not aware that we really compromise the Polokwane strategic resolutions in favour of media coverage and “Celebritismy”( capitalist mentality? ) Surely, every child will love to appear on TV but to appear always with controversial issues especially when you commit political suicide is more than what it means to be a celebrity. Imagine a leader of a revolutionary movement appearing on a pornographic movie all in the name of being a celebrity is very dangerous, is like thinking about having a tea party with Helen Zille. I in the final analysis agree with Cde Julius Malema that all those who are viewed as being hardline supporters to Cde Jacob Zuma are seen as the most dangerous people in the context of maintaining him in power for as long as the Nation wants him – I agree that the media as desperate as it is will use all they have to ensure that the Thabo Mbeki regime resuscitate from political graves no matter what it takes even if it means turning Terror Lekota into the next President of the country the media can do that useless attempt. As we agreed that our main reason to support Cde Jacob Zuma was based on the principle of innocence until proven otherwise, why shouldn’t we agree that with regard to Cde Julius Malema the same principled based approach should apply? Certainly, in as much as we agree with the auditing of public representatives and leaders in our country I think we do not agree with the media to do audits in the manner it does, only legal institutions like Revenue Service should conduct these audits. I think to avoid making headlines unnecessarily; we should separate issues and deal with them accordingly. We should in the same spirit disagree with the Youth League and at the same support it when we think it is carrying a progressive position/line. Amongst us there are those who just make statements in the media without firstly applying their thinking, only because it is Malema who spoke – they do not deal with the issue Malema raises – though he has a problem of speaking the voice and not issues as well. Whether Malema had tenders or not for me this is not the issue until SARS proves otherwise. As cadres of the movement who are involved in local government we are aware of daily corruption by Municipal Mangers and Mayors and no actions are called upon by the media, instead the media works in line with the defence of the corrupt ones. For instance, in Local Municipality of Potchefstroom we are aware of the role the local media plays in making sure that it helps those who are opposed to the ANC in support of a faction that criticises the ANC NEC, the recently established Provincial Task Task and other task teams, this has been clear especially in how the media cover issues. In fact there is a community radio station which has for the past few Months especially since after the Polokwane conference reporting very negatively about the ANC including fabricating lies about some of us – but at the same time being able to those who left the ANC for COPE to speak on issues of political importance without other political parties. At the moment as I am writing this document the station is facing a case were it is being sued for lying about our names. We have had as part of professional engagement conversations with other institutions relating to the community media about these problems but all has been in vain including the National Community Radio Forum – but the very station defied the NCRF and ICASA – simply because it has political and financial assistance from the most powerful supporters of the Anti ANC faction led by Supra Mahumapelo and others. In this context we should agree that the media is not as innocent as we are made to believe. We need to call on the relevant institutions to thoroughly investigate the media and the role it plays, it cannot be fine that the media violates my individual human and democratic rights and I should in fear of being reported wrongly as they do now accept their violation of my rights. Media freedom is not equal to media abuse – senior individuals in the media in the form of station mangers and other senior personnel are at all times given promises for tenders in the media industry provided they report positively about certain people. How do Executive Mayors have personal close relationships with senior journalists and station managers – to an extend that they are included in official trips to other countries at the expense of taxpayers and their radio stations are given lists and people to employ, even though those individuals have no idea about journalism but only because they have personal relationships with such politicians. We call on ICASA and other relevant institutions to unfold investigations with all these issues so that we are able to understand the media and work with it within the context of respecting their media freedom and the role they are to play in making our country a better country for all. Kaizer Mohau Writing in his personal capacity 072 0802824 -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
