New Age2.png Black Wednesday was not all that black Sandile Memela, The New Age, Johannesburg, 19 October 2015 It is 38 years ago that the apartheid regime mounted its assault against the freedom and integrity of so-called black newspapers But not all blacks, especially in the media, were politically committed as the commemoration of October 19 (Black Wednesday) purports. In fact, less than a dozen senior black journalists, including the editors, were detained without trial. While the public misunderstood this as confirmation of their radical political nature, there has always been a need to acutely reexamine the role and relevance of black newspapers in the struggle for freedom. Or put it into its proper perspective. Although some black journalists were subjected to political harassment, it would be misleading to generally bestow upon all or most black editors and journalists the status of being unsung heroes of the struggle for liberation. To a large extent, black newspapers were, primarily, instruments of systematic and repetitive agenda calculated to soften or dilute political consciousness among their readers. When The World was banned in 1977, big business had to quickly reinvent a substitute as a vehicle to tap into the sleeping giant known as the black market. The strategy was developed to sponsor the transmogrification of a popular knock and drop into a mainstream publication that would supposedly rise in stature, influence and power. Perhaps in its own unique way, the history of The Sowetan and City Press newspapers, for example, represent an important barometer to determine the struggle for self-determination, freedom of thought and expression. In fact, they punctuate the sad history of the constraints on so-called black media and its journalists to articulate the hopes and aspirations of the African majority. There is no doubt that in their role as self-appointed custodians of freedom of expression and black aspirations, a few politically conscious black journalists have exercised a powerful influence to give expression to the African majority's demands for freedom and democracy. Erroneously, their role and contribution to the struggle is what we are fleetingly reminded of every year on October 19. It is an attempt at keeping alive a non-existent political role. These are commercial publications that use politics for money making purposes. Thus, there will always be a need to critically examine and debate the claim that black journalism served a political agenda or was founded to pursue the commercial interests of its owners. Significantly, The Sowetan, City Press and their predecessors - the Bantu World, The World, Post and The Mirror - did not develop under African conception, ownership or control. The publications were, largely, the result of the colonial agenda to spread and coopt Africans into the Western thought and lifestyle. Their purpose, essentially, was to dilute anything that was an expression of African heritage, history and culture or articulate it from a Western perspective. What this means is that these publications were, in essence, imitations of European thought and cultural patterns. They were vehicles to entrench Western intellectual domination through the creation and promotion of the African elite. The Bantu World was founded by a former white farmer, Bertram Paver who, obviously, had no noble intention to propagate African desire for self-determination and independence. Instead, not only did he desire the newspaper to be predominantly in English but he wanted it to propagate news from the standpoint of how Westernisation benefitted Africans. While Africans owned 50% of the newspaper's stake, only seven out of the 20 pages of the newspaper were in indigenous languages, thus encouraging the marginalisation of African languages from the mainstream. The first generation of editors and journalists in the 1930s, '40s and '50s were highly educated and Westernised African gentlemen who enjoyed prestige among the African readership because they were representatives of the white man's way. After the banning of the liberation movements in 1960, for instance, the so-called black newspapers did not step into the political vacuum as their primary concern was to make profit and, at the same time, depoliticise the African population through an over-cautious editorial policy. It was into this political void that young students like Steve Biko, Barney Pityana et al stepped in to popularise and mobilise the black community through the philosophy of Black Consciousness. To a large extent, black journalists were ensconced in middle-class lifestyles and outlooks that confined them to reporting on non-political stories that emphasised sports, entertainment, crime and "society". Today, both the World and Post are influential in so-called celebrity journalism that thrives on negative reporting and scandals. They conform to the role prescribed by white editorial directors who were more interested in using the newspaper to tap into the black market than waging political battles to liberate the country. The dramatic change of attitude happened with the rise of Steve Biko and the rumbles of student discontent in Soweto in the early 1970s with the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. As much as Percy Qoboza (editor: The World 1964-1977) was an outspoken critic of the apartheid regime, he functioned under very strict white editorial control. When the paper was banned in 1977 only to be resurrected as Post in 1981, Qoboza was forced to resign, possibly for being "uncontrollable". If we are to be true to ourselves, October 19 does not give us a full picture of the role of black journalists in mainstream media. . Sandile Memela is a journalist, writer, cultural critic and media executive at SARS. He writes in his personal capacity From: <http://tnaepaper.co.za/> http://tnaepaper.co.za/ -- -- 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] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
