Media ethics, credibility and freedom were among issues discussed at the inaugural Aggrey Klaaste Annual Colloquium that took place yesterday.
The colloquium was held to commemorate the events of October 19 1977, when black publications were shut down by the apartheid regime. The day became known as Black Wednesday and is now celebrated as Media Freedom Day.
Panelist included veteran journalists Joe Thloloe, Anton Harber, Thami Mazwai, Sowetan editor Nwabisa Makunga and Newsroom Africa’s political editor, Sbu Ngalwa, who reflected on the role played by the media during apartheid and after apartheid.
The colloquium was organised by the Aggrey Klaaste Trust in partnership with Sowetan, Arena Holdings, Wits University, DM5 Attorneys and SA National Editors Forum.
It further looked at the challenges faced by the media industry amid Covid-19, challenges posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the state of newsrooms and the meaning of nation building principles today.
Former anti-apartheid journalist Mazwai criticised the media in general for overlooking the issues of poverty, inequality and unemployment, which affect many black people.
As much as he praised the media for exposing corruption he said it was missing the important story of South Africans who slept on empty stomach and children whose only source of food was school feeding scheme.
“I am saying this because before 1994 when we look at the media and black SA we find that it was decreasing both socially and economically. In 2020, there are over 40-million people who live on less than R1,200 a day and unemployment is over 10 million but this does not reflect in the news pages. I was part of the media in 1994 and we never sat down as the industry and contextualised our role in the society. Individual media houses may have done so,” Mazwai said.
Thloloe called on journalists to enhance and improve the quality of news stories they produce to be able to relate with their readers.
“Our dreams and our hopes are shattered. We are back in crisis. The old model of the media has been shattered. The old model of the media was that you got as big an audience as possible. Advertising helped with investigations,” said Thloloe.
“We haven’t devised a new model yet. Advertisers have fled to the big online operators. These operators can target with a laser-sharp focus our tastes, habits and everything about us,” he added.
Mazwai further questioned the media’s credibility and ethics, pointing out that the behaviour of certain journalists had raised eyebrows. He argued that during apartheid, especially in the 1970s to 1980s, journalists did their level best to present news without taking sides.
Makunga urged her colleagues in media to capacitate journalists with the tools necessary to assist the industry produce quality journalism and enhance media credibility.
She highlighted the hardest challenges that practising journalists now face and called on the profession to come up with ways to ensure journalism is not compromised. Makunga spoke of the economic challenges journalism faces today.
“There is a bloodbath, where revenues shrink, circulation drops, journalists lose their jobs and those who remain have to do far more with less. In 10 years or so half of journalists in SA have lost their jobs and this affects the ability to tell and produce quality stories,” she said.
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