It is worth repeating the statement: Abolish the state press, tolerate the private press, promote public media and advocate for community information systems.
Having said that, there will also be a need, in passing though, to make comment about the advent of the so-called ‘social networking media’.
Rupert Murdoch’s News International Corporation is currently up to here in what one journalist describes as a scandal of ‘stratospheric proportions’. The ‘toxic’ effects of the scandal is spilling over to the United States where the legislators threaten that if it is found that Murdoch’s papers are up to the same mischief in the US as they are doing in Britain, “there will be serious repercussions”.
At the 1998 Recife congress of the International Federation of Journalists, race driver, Airton Senna’s wife spoke of her fresh dedication to the plight of children, especially how they are treated in the press.
Her contribution came as part of the discussion on a supporting document to the IFJ’s nine Principles of Ethics and Professional Behaviour.
One of the provisions of the document states that interviewing or giving information about a child without the consent of his or her guardian is not permitted. Thirteen years later, former British prime minister, Gordon Brown, has complained that information about his son Frazer’s illness, was splashed in The Sun, having been acquired with the help of ‘criminals’. A day later The Sun publishes a front page story, ‘Brown Wrong’, arguing that he had consented to the publication of that information, which they got from another father whose son suffered the same illness.
Most unlikely. Could it really happen that a former prime minister could already be suffering such delusion or amnesia that he would forget so personal an experience such as the grief his family suffered resulting from the disclosure of his son’s illness about which they had learnt a few days before The Sun published. In any case, it is the ethical imperative ÔÇô not prerogative ÔÇô of the publisher to check with the source of information, not once but three times, to make sure that the journalist does not inadvertently fail yet another of the principles of professional behaviour; doing (undue) harm.
Gordon Brown is a powerful person. He can talk and attract front page headlines. Not so with the average citizen. And that is why journalists of conscience pay attention to the ethical rules of the profession.
It is not as if the journalists at The Sun, or the sister paper, News of The World, which has been compelled to close on account of similar mischief, do not know about these ethical rules. It is in fact because they do know the rules that they have chosen the route of stealing information by telephone in order to avoid the hassle of obeying them.
Far more importantly though, is that the information must be of the type that plays on the sensitivities of the reader, focusing on the human frailties of public figures, celebrities or other significant folk. Sex, violence and a good measure of dirt will do the job.
In the gutter press that is what sells the paper or the news. That is what draws in the profits. And, in the day to day running of the newspaper, the mercenary journalists sacrifice the bible of the profession ÔÇô ethics the principles of professional behaviour ÔÇô in the pursuit of profit or other non-journalistic motives.
The more experienced liberal democracies of the West have long shed the notion that the state is entitled to ownership and control of the press. On the contrary, these democracies shun any suggestion of state interference in the social dialogue between and among citizens and institutions of governance.
That is the business of the press going back to the French Revolution. The Union of the Journalists guard that role jealously, as does the average citizen in whose name the ‘free and independent’ press was founded anyway.
Inevitably, the modern capitalist state is compelled in the interest of the ruling classes, to find a mutual space for the appetite of private enterprise for profit and the desire of the politicians for publicity.
British Prime Minister, David Cameron is now caught in the embarrassing position of having to distance himself from the newspaper scandal that threatens to engulf his leadership and the very political life of the Conservative Party which has for years thrived on the goodwill of Rupert Murdoch.
In journalist Annette Young’s words: “For thirty years ÔÇô not any more ÔÇô the politicians were terrified of him.” She further reports that Cameron was compelled to read the riot act to Murdoch in his speech in parliament threatening that “if the investigations of the police and a judge led commission find any proprietors to have been involved in these activities, they will be allowed to play no future role in the British press”.
Easier said than done. In reality the politicians and their publicists in the private press live a symbiotic existence. Cameron can count himself lucky. As soon as the other politicians started to investigate his own links with Murdoch’s empire, attention quickly shifted to the operations of News Corp in the United States and Australia.
Between 10 and 20 multinationals own some 70 to 80 per cent of the international press. Annette Young estimates that Murdoch owns 70 per cent of the print media in Australia. That should be a fair estimate for South Africa. (Research ÔÇô unfortunately not available as this article is written ÔÇô was done in the last ten years showing just that). The figures are less in the United States and Britain, but the establishments are just as large.
That Murdoch empire therefore, by going round the rules of fair competition in the capitalist sense of the world, steadily building monopolies in every nation where he invested, has grown into a much feared financial oligarch. That makes him larger than journalism and democracy.
To that extent, his newspapers can pay their way out of the ethical quandary that they now face as they reconstruct their battered image and dealings with the political establishments in the various countries where his organisations have a presence.
Botswana’s trade unions, which recently went on a stay-away action seeking a 16 per cent pay rise, will have a story to tell about the behaviour of the state owned press.
From day one, the speakers on the podium at the Gaborone Secondary School grounds were compelled to warn the workers: “Lo seka lwa reetsa Btv kana bo-Radio Botswana. Ga lo nke lo utlwe sepe se se nang le boammaruri. Tlang fa setlareng ka faefe le tle go tsaya dikgang sentle mo boeteledipeleng ÔÇô Ignore Btv and Radio Botswana because you will not get the truth there. Report to this tree at 5 o’clock every day to get the real news from your leaders”.
In anticipation of the 18 April ‘strike’, the weekend news at Btv carried statements by Acting vice president, Ponatshego Kedikilwe, permanent secretay at the Office of the President, Eric Molale and Director of the Department of the Public Service Management, the Minister for Presidential Affairs, Motshegetsi Masisi putting the case of the government for a 0% award.
The fear of God was put into the listening public, the ministers predicting imminent collapse of the economy if the workers went on strike.
President Ian Khama had his turn on the occasion of some High Level Consultative meeting ostensibly called for a brief of the business community, but in reality, tailored for yet another official doze of government propaganda about the industrial action in progress.
Two or three years ago, government faked an exercise in establishing public broadcasting in order to strengthen their publicly stated undertaking “to continue to develop the government media”. No doubt, this mock theatre should have been influenced by the protestations of the British journalists and technicians who abandoned the Btv project as soon as they realised that it was a hoax ‘public broadcaster’.
The state media permits the ruling party politicians unlimited publicity at taxpayer’s expense. They need not go the roundabout route of courting the likes of Dikgang Publishing, the Sunday Standard and its sister Telegraph, The Voice or Gazette, though they are generously represented there; overtly and covertly.
The state press is not obliged to test any of their information against universal principles of professional behaviour. The state media is first and foremost an instrument of political propaganda. The employees there are hired as government information officers. Some carry the best qualifications in the study of journalism. Editorial decisions must be made in accordance with the orders of the minister for presidential affairs responsible for the state press. Or otherwise, the president.
On occasion, the new technology betrayed the employees, revealing in one instance the draft of a letter of appeal by one senior employee who complained that “I have done the job” but he was not getting the promised reward.
On another occasion, the news editors found no use for the duster leaving an order on the blackboard ordering a blackout on Botswana National Front reports. (Refer to Botswana Guardian archives).
The state press is not only a taxpayer’s liability; it also narrows down the market for the operation of the private press which must raise its own operational finances. Willing private entrepreneurs are closed out of the information and communications industry by this huge amoeboid monster that stands at the gate into market.
The state press is the best of the worst, an anachronism to every known democratic principle. The private press is the lesser of the two evils, if only for the fact that it does not parasite on taxpayer’s money in order to carry out its agenda. For all its evils, it performs the perilous and indispensible duty on watching out for the interests of the public where the politicians have passed.
It shall be repeated that, especially in these parts of the globe, the marrying of the taxpayers’ interest ÔÇô not political interest ÔÇô with that of the private entrepreneurs and civic society, presents itself as the most workable compromise for democracy.
It has been said before: Government has an interest in serving the public with good information about health, agriculture, family entertainment, civic education, news and government work. That is an honourable investment of taxpayer’s money. Private persons will sponsor those spaces that will advance the healthy aspects of their economic activity. E.g. Coke might advertise against their sponsorship of sports development. On account of their investment, the private interest groups will want efficient and professional accountability. That is good for journalism.
This is what journalists and civilised society understand by ‘public media’.
Finally, there must be increased advocacy for community media which will subject itself with the immediate information needs of peoples away from the centres of privilege especially in the urban centres. (That should by no means suggest that ‘community’ and ‘urban’ are mutually exclusive). There is ample evidence to demonstrate the efficacy of the community based media, especially in the underdeveloped countries. In any case, is that not where ‘the press’ began?) (WordWorks)
