TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 6

Volume FOUR Chapter SIX

Institutional Hearing:The Media

■ INTRODUCTION

1 The South African media played a crucial role in helping reflect and mould public opinion during the years under review. However, could the media also be said to have been directly responsible for gross human rights violations? And to what extent were they responsible for the climate in which gross human rights violations occurred?

2 These were the questions asked when the possibility of a special hearing on the media was first raised. They needed to be considered along with the more obvious point that, because of the media’s role in providing ‘instant history’, a review of its performance under apartheid might help the Commission in providing the “complete picture” of the political conflicts of the time required by the Act.

3 The announcement of the possibility of a media hearing resulted, immediately, in a major public debate in the media which began to air some key issues. In addition, submissions were prepared for presentation to the Commission.

4 The central point made in these submissions was the suggestion that the media, particularly those media that directly supported government policy, had provided a “cloud of cover” under which gross human rights violations were possible. More bluntly, the media during apartheid were seen to have “made what happened to Biko acceptable”. This gave some direction to the proposed hearings, raising questions such as how and in what circumstances such a “cloud of cover” was created; what its implications were, especially for the journalists who worked in the different media, and what lessons could be drawn for the future.

5 Initial discussions quickly and unexpectedly revealed the complexity of existing divisions within the sector. Some black journalists objected to the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) doing preliminary research for the Commission, because some of its members had been part of previous management structures. The dispute was resolved after top-level discussions.

6 Public presentations of several submissions were made at the Commission’s offices. These generated more interest in the hearing and stimulated further submissions. At the same time, special interviews were arranged with some of the state operatives mentioned in the submissions to discuss their role under apartheid.

7 It was soon clear that, owing to budgetary and time constraints, it would not be possible to cover all aspects of the media sector. It was agreed that the hearing would focus on three major themes:

a The broadcast media, primarily the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), but including the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation (BOP TV) as a ‘window’ case, and looking briefly at Radio Freedom.

b The print media, with a special emphasis on the concerns of black journalists, and an attempt to involve the Afrikaans press.

c The relationship between the media and the state, including testimony from the media unions, from individual journalists under the theme ‘silencing the press’, and from state operatives on how they worked the system.

The hearings

8 The media hearings took place on the 15-17 September 1997 at the offices of the SABC, Johannesburg. The venue was chosen as a strong symbol of state control of media in the apartheid era. Significantly, the facilities were made available, free of charge, by the SABC.

■ LEGAL AND ETHICAL BACKGROUND

9 During the period under review, the South African media operated in a heavily legislated environment and saw the introduction, between 1950 and 1990, of more than 100 laws affecting its operations. This legislation ranged from blatant prohibition of publications to the threat of prosecution for printing or broadcasting subversive statements. Although it did not eliminate the production of information and statements of opposition, it severely restricted them.

10 The mainstream newspapers reacted to legal curbs with a policy of appeasement. They did not defy the laws but, they claim, tried to exploit loopholes and find ways to beat the system. Print media bosses introduced their own forms of self-discipline and self-censorship, without reference to journalists. For instance, no democratically shaped codes of conduct were developed with working journalists. Instead, largely through the Newspaper Press Union (NPU), ‘agreements’ were imposed on journalists in a top-down fashion. This combination of far-reaching legislation, self-censorship and agreements negotiated between the NPU and the state produced an environment in which the state not only succeeded in manipulating and controlling information, but also broadly eroded the fundamental freedoms of the press.

11 Internationally, the trend was quite the opposite. The 1954 Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) set a specific standard of professional conduct for journalists, opening with the declaration that “the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist”. Other principles pertinent to the South African mainstream press were the following:

The journalist shall observe professional secrecy regarding the source of information obtained in secret [in direct contrast, South African journalists were subjected to - and did little to defy - the infamous Clause 205] and;

The journalist shall be aware of the dangers of discrimination being furthered by the media, and shall do the utmost to avoid facilitating such discrimination based on, among other things, race, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinions, and national or social origins.

12 It was only later that the IFJ Declaration took concrete hold in the South African Union of Journalists (SAUJ). However, in reality, while the principles of the IFJ would have resonated with several embattled print journalists in South Africa, a huge gap existed between the intent of the declaration and the inaction of the majority of journalists in the mainstream press.

13 Unlike print, public broadcasting, in the guise of the SABC, was regulated by the Broadcast Act of 1976. Ironically, the Broadcast Act required the SABC to “disseminate information” to “all the national communities … unambiguously, factually, impartially and without distortion”. But it prevented the SABC from broadcasting anything that would cause, amongst other things, “unrest or panic … threaten state security ... [or] damage the Republic’s image abroad”.

14 In practice, policy statements from the SABC, which on the surface appeared to be advocating racial harmony and peace, aimed at ensuring National Party (NP) control and white privilege.