Commemorating Black Wednesday/Media Freedom Day

18 October 2018 - Glenda Daniels

A reflection on the media: consolidation and convergence – or shrivelling and sinking?

Like a slow tsunami, South African newsrooms are shrivelling due to retrenchments. On Black Wednesday (19 October 1977) and Media Freedom Day, I will shine the spotlight on the usual threats to media freedom, but the more important question must be asked: if journalists all but disappear, whose freedoms are we worrying about protecting? And what does this mean for the public, considering journalism is meant to serve them through offering a voice, diversity and plurality to deepen democracy?

The number of journalists in full-time jobs has halved from about a decade ago when, some painful information gathering techniques show, it was about 10,000-strong. Some media researchers say that there could well still be about 10,000 ¡°media workers¡± in South Africa ¨C but some are freelance journalists and most are in public relations or part of the ¡°gig economy¡±; a day here and a day there of editing or hustling.

Losses in the number of community newspapers have been easier to track: there were 575 in 2008, but in 2018 there are about 275. However, CEO of the Association of Independent Publishers, Louise Vale, feels that this number could be on the optimistic side: ¡°It may be even less than that.¡±

Journalists are being retrenched as part of cost-cutting measures, with companies serving section 189 notices to meet their obligations under the Labour Relations Act. The SABC, the biggest employer of journalists and in debt to the tune of R622-million, said in September that it may be serving the 189 notice. Job losses from retrenchments ¨C also voluntary packages, dismissal, being laid off, asked to take early retirement ¨C have taken place in waves over the past decade, while media companies have come up with words that sound rational, and somewhat scientific: ¡°consolidation¡±, ¡°convergence¡± and ¡°centralisation¡±. All these Cs sound politer than the S words which are more apposite descriptions of the reality: shrivel, shrink, sink and squeeze.

According to the New Beats project (an international project based in Melbourne, Australia), the South African arm of the research conducted in 2018 shows that most journalists who have been retrenched had no union support, were not trained for the digital age, even though they were keen, and the majority are part of the gig economy ¨C ¡°doing a mix of journalism and other things¡±, such as public relations. A small percentage is studying towards MAs or PhDs, while an even smaller percentage moved completely out of journalism to selling property or Bitcoins. The majority are earning less than and less and are mostly disillusioned with the media world.

One of the 163 respondents said: ¡°Appallingly low freelance rates in journalism which haven¡¯t kept up with inflation, and public relations work in the private and public sector. We take whatever we can get, really, after being chewed up and spat out by the company, which didn¡¯t have the courtesy to even say thank you, never mind a farewell party after 20 years.¡±

The completed international research on what happens to journalists when they lose their jobs will be launched in 2019.

The Glass Ceiling 2018 research about to be launched on Black Wednesday/Media Freedom Day ¨C on Friday 19 October ¨C shows that women are experiencing a backlash in the newsroom and media companies. They say that while men understand sexism a lot better today than in the past, they know they earn less than men. They also cite sexist jokes, being ignored for promotion, and the old boys¡¯ network that continues to exclude them.

On this 2018 Black Wednesday/Media Freedom Day, President Cyril Ramaphosa is the keynote speaker at a fund-raising dinner hosted by the SA National Editors Forum in Johannesburg. I wonder which of the myriad challenges the journalism industry is facing he will tackle.

On 19 October 1977 (Black Wednesday), about a month after Black Consciousness hero Steve Biko was murdered in detention, then minister of justice Jimmy Kruger arrested editors and banned The World, Weekend World and the church publication Pro Veritate. He also banned 19 Black Consciousness organisations: the Black People¡¯s Convention, the SA Students¡¯ Organisation (which Biko founded), the SA Students¡¯ Movement, the National Association of Youth Organisations and its affiliates, the Black Community Programmes, the Medupe Writers¡¯ Association, the Zimele Trust Fund, the Black Women¡¯s Federation, the Union of Black Journalists and the Association for the Educational and Cultural Advancement of the African People of South Africa.

The apartheid regime detained key writers Joe Thloloe, Mathatha Tsedu and Don Mattera, who were tortured in prison and on their release were slapped with five-year banning orders.

What have job losses in journalism got to do with Black Wednesday/Media Freedom Day?

It is highly unlikely that any such gross and obscene mutilation of our human rights such as that which took place in 1977 could ever take place in South Africa today. But through loss of jobs in journalism we are also losing voices, plurality, context, and experience. As media companies ¡°consolidate¡±, they hire young people who they can pay R10,000 a month or less, but provide no mentorships and training, so they swim or sink. Loss of plurality means you see the same story with the same quotes, intro, angles etc in a variety of ¡°different¡± websites and newspapers, sometimes with the same byline, sometimes with different bylines, discombobulating readers in the process.

Some of the other threats and trends we face today are also serious.

Threats

• Government interference in the SABC board. Once the new editorial charter is adopted it must be adhered to. Government tends to think it owns the public broadcaster, incorrectly conflating state, government, ruling party, SABC, the public.

• Police bullying at crime scene behaviour: police need to know that journalists are allowed to be at crime scenes, to interview people, record events from outside the condoned off area.

• Protesters and police are guilty of harassing journalists on their jobs, particularly photo-journalists and women.

• The Protection of State Information (Secrecy) bill remains unsigned on the president¡¯s desk. He should scrap it; information rights and media freedom activists have already sent it to lawyers to check for constitutionality: you can¡¯t jail journalists for doing their jobs and uncovering ¡°classified¡± information. Mostly ¡°classified¡± information tends to be about covering corruption, not threats of being invaded by a neighbouring country.

• The establishment of a Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) remains a resolution of the ANC since its Polokwane (2007) conference, unimplemented, but some elements in the ANC would like journalists licensed (this is a joke in the digital world where everyone can publish and the definition of who is a journalist becomes more fluid every day). .

• Surveillance: a number of investigative journalists have reported that their phones are being tapped.

• Bullying and online trolling of women: this is increasing and the bullies have used sexualised images to shut women up when they expose investigations on corruption.

• Fake news (misinformation/ disinformation/propaganda and lies) is a huge threat and will probably increase as we move towards the 2019 election; with politicians being accused of trying to ¡°brown envelope¡± (bribe) journalists.

• Loss of professional journalists means loss of institutional memory, loss of political memory and context, with more mistakes in print and online; subs desks have been radically cut back.

• The police may not be throwing journalists into jail and the government is not closing papers. But media companies are discombobulated, and have resigned themselves to participating in the tsunami; they have not provided support or training either.

Trends

• Collaboration and sharing: investigative journalists are sharing info and helping each other in the country and across borders. Competition is healthy, but media wars are a bit pass¨¦. The trend now is for collaboration to hold power to account to fight corruption, disinformation and lies.

• Fighting corruption: could well be the biggest threat to poverty alleviation as President Cyril Ramaphosa said this month at the Jobs Summit. Therefore, investigative journalism must be supported.

• Unless some news outlets have investigative units, their titles are likely to continue to shrink ¨C with some that were once 64 pages now dowsized to 32 pages. News companies need to have a niche area to survive, otherwise they tend to be full of opinion, not based on research.

• There¡¯s a backlash against women. And it¡¯s caused women to be more assertive in media companies about salary disparities and putting up their hands more for leadership positions. It is good news that two of the biggest television stations, SABC and eNCA, are headed by black women.

• Social media usage is deepening democracy, yet data in SA is more expensive than anywhere in the world and most people in rural areas don¡¯t have smartphones to access, Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter. It¡¯s the middle classes who are addicted to their echo chambers.

• Newsrooms will continue to hire younger people who have the skills of uploading videos with smartphones and ¡°content producing¡±, which isn¡¯t necessarily about telling a story skilfully. If you deconstruct the term ¡°content producing¡±, it can be likened to a vase: pour anything in, including flowers, and it holds ¡°content¡±.

• Some academics, community and NGO activists liaise with journalists on stories without understanding the time and cost pressures they are under, with their editors often saying: ¡°Sorry, you can¡¯t do that story, there is no budget to travel.¡± How can a journalist get an insightful, in-depth story on a complex issue ¨C such as hostel dweller violence, for instance ¨C when he or she has to produce multiple stories a day, 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there?

• It¡¯s not just shrinkage, it¡¯s also closures, and it¡¯s not just in print. In 2018 we had the closure of the online Huffington Post SA, a television station, ANN7 which became Afro Worldview, and Afrovoicewhich was The New Age (these latter two were owned by the Guptas and represented the corrupt Zuma faction). At the end of 2017, The Times closed its print edition.

• There has been some growth: South Africa has 108 online publications, which we didn¡¯t have a decade ago, most of which are registered with the Press Council SA.1

• Until broadband is rolled out, and made cheaper, as promised by the government 10 years ago, the unemployed, the poor, and rural folk will continue to be the losers in accessing information.

My Black Wednesday¡¯s reflection for 2018 is thus that journalism¡¯s job losses are a tragic tsunami. We need more voices and plurality if we are to call ourselves a deepening, robust democracy. 

Glenda Daniels is an Associate Professor in Media Studies, Wits University. This article was first published on the Daily Maverick.