SACP NORTH WEST PROVINCE ON THE MEDIA TRIBUNAL Thursday, 09 September 2010 The South African Communist Party (SACP) North West province supports the call for a media tribunal. As the SACP in the North West we regard the call as an important step to the right direction in making sure that the media like other institutions is not operating like it is a law unto itself.
As in many countries, the media in South Africa has been operating in a manner that shows no respect for the rights of others. Our understanding as the SACP in the North West is that in as much as we respect the rights of the media in its expression – we however believe that that right does not supersede other rights as they are all enshrined in the country’s democratic constitution – therefore the media should be held accountable for their abuse of the rights and dignity of others. We have witnessed as South Africa a situation where in which the media makes reports and if the reports are proved to be wrong, they just publish Mickey Mouse apologies without any seriousness. While we are aware of the existence of the so-called press ombudsman we are equally aware that those appointed as ombudsman are former journalists who are produced by the very media they are ombudsman to – therefore we cannot rely on them to ensure the media reports accordingly and objectively. A simple example is that of Joe Tlholoe who was once with Etv which has in many instances made reports which seemed to be politically orchestrated during his period, so how then should we expect him to be objective? So ours is to make sure that the media tribunal is not used to report better about individuals, but to ensure that the media does not play marbles with the human rights and the dignity of others – the media tribunal will be acting to ensure that the fourth estate is always monitored and it is held accountable so that all South Africans are respected and dignified as per constitutional requirement. As the SACP in the North West province, we regard as opportunistic the raising of the issue of a journalist who was recently arrested – we regard that arrest as an isolated case that needs to be looked at separately from the call for the tribunal – we equally call on relevant institutions to thoroughly investigate the case so that it is properly clarified and understood, perhaps a lot can be revealed in that case regarding political factionalism and criminality. The SACP we further reject in totality the threats from global media houses against the call for the tribunal – because our view is that what is threatened in their imagination is their profit accumulation in the selling of the media in South Africa, clearly their interest has never about providing information objectively about and to South Africans but has always been about making profits. We hope that the African National Congress (ANC) National General Council will instead of entertaining threats made by the fourth estate agree with this call in line with the Polokwane resolutions and further deepen democracy in our country. CONTACT: Kaizer Mohau SACP NW Spokesperson Tel: 018 4625675 Mobile: 0727315818 Or Madoda Sambatha SACP NW Provincial Secretary Mobile: 0828005336 -- 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] .
