Business Day
*Mantashe 'nod' to press control plan**Trevor Neethling and Khulekani Magubane, Business Day, Johannesburg, 26 April 2012 *
THE African National Congress (ANC) has all but endorsed the print media industry's own proposals to tighten control over the press and raise accountability.
This is a significant departure from the ANC's earlier insistence on the establishment of a media appeals tribunal overseen by Parliament, regarded by many in the media as a mechanism to muzzle SA's free press.
The ANC's Polokwane conference in 2007 resolved that the party should investigate setting up a tribunal to improve the regulation and transformation of the media industry.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said at the launch yesterday of the Press Freedom Commission's recommendations on independent co-regulation of the press that he was "very comfortable" with its findings.
The commission was established by Print Media SA and the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) in July last year in response to ANC criticism that existing self-regulation of newspapers was inadequate.
The Press Freedom Commission yesterday recommended a new system of co-regulation carried out by a new Press Council to be made up of a majority of members of the public and a minority of representatives of the print media industry.
It recommended sweeping changes to the current complaints system, including removal of the waiver clause, more holistic reporting of children's issues, sanctions for absenteeism from hearings and effective regulation of digital publications.
Removal of the waiver means that complainants to the Press Council could also seek legal redress, which had been prohibited by the clause.
The recommendations struck a chord with the ANC. "The principles embodied here are very acceptable and give us what we think is legitimate regulation of the print media," Mr Mantashe said. "By and large we are very happy with the principles that we have heard here today, but we'll have to take the report to body of the organisation (the ANC) and come up officially and endorse it.
"From what we have read and what was presented here we are very comfortable."It has actually moved a long way to what our expectations are in giving space to intervention to ensure that rights are protected."
Mr Mantashe said the process of establishing the commission had shaken the print media industry out of its "comfort zone" and its findings had given legitimacy to regulation.
Democratic Alliance chairman Wilmot James welcomed the report yesterday, saying that it would strengthen democracy and support good journalism.
Press Freedom Commission chair man Justice Pius Langa said that the report was the culmination of research, international study and written and oral submissions.
The commission had found that there were "overwhelming negative perceptions" about aspects of current press regulation.
"We believe we have addressed all the issues in a way that ensures press freedom while at the same time protecting privacy, dignity and reputation of people who are subject to press coverage," Justice Langa said.
The commission also made recommendations on the transformation of the media industry, highlighting the need for an industry charter on transformation.
Print Media SA and Sanef welcomed the report and pledged to abide by its contents. Sanef chairman Mondli Makhanya said at the launch yesterday: "We wanted self-regulation, but this process was independent of ourselves and the product shows that. This is quite a radical departure from how the press system operates in SA."
Mr Makhanya said the media occasionally had shortcomings and therefore needed strong mechanisms for accountability.
The industry would accept the report and editors would have to find ways to rise to the challenges it presented.
"These are not things that we should fear, but are things that we should live by," he said.
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