OF SPOOKS, CENSORSHIP AND THE SABC
The vetting of the SABC head of news by the State Security Agency, two years after his appointment and just ahead of an election, should be called what it is: an attempt at intimidation
Are we really supposed to believe it’ sa coincidence that the State Security Agency (SSA) has decided to do an official vetting of Moshoeshoe Monare, the head of news at the SABC, just weeks before the national elections? And this after he has been in the job for two years already?
This is the same SSA, let me remind you, that blithely paid a media house to publish positive news about the government, or propaganda as it’s more commonly known. We learnt this at the commission of inquiry into state capture, or Zondo commission to you and me, where Sydney Mufamadi revealed that about R20m was paid by the intelligence agency to the African News Agency (ANA) to, as The Witness put it, “influence the national news narrative, and to counter the bad publicity around former president Jacob Zuma’s government”.
ANA is part of Iqbal Survé’s Independent Media group, and as such is not unused to carrying state propaganda. A recent report by the African Digital Democracy Observatory noted that an average of at least 25% of ANA’s content comes from People’s Republic of China (PRC) news agency Xinhua, and that the articles related to Africa emphasised the PRC as “beneficent, referencing shared prosperity, partnerships and global leadership”.
And we’re all familiar with the way Independent Online and Independent’s remaining newspapers unashamedly carry propaganda supplied by the Chinese embassy in South Africa.
This is in direct contravention of the South African press code, which states that “the media shall not allow commercial, political, personal or other nonprofessional considerations to influence reporting, and avoid conflicts of interest as well as practices that could lead readers to doubt the media’s independence and professionalism”.
If we’re letting the state use its security apparatus to pressure journalists, we’re inviting autocracy into our home
This segue into the SSA’s bought influence with a media house has a point. Monare used to be the editor of Independent Media’s Sunday Independent newspaper, and he left along with other senior staff when Survé took over as the new owner and started to dismantle editorial independence.
It’s worth quoting a chunk from Alide Dasnois and Chris Whitfield’s book
Paper Tiger: Iqbal Survé and the Downfall of Independent Newspapers. In it, Monare describes why he left. “I tendered my resignation in the summer of 2014 when it was very clear that my independence as an editor was compromised. I was the editor of the Sunday Independent, a political paper, but I was told that all my staff — mostly political — would report to group editor Karima Brown.
“She demanded to be in my diary meetings and I politely told her that it was inappropriate, even though I did not mind briefing her at a strategic level once a week or month. I was also told that op-eds would be commissioned by [group editor] Vukani Mde as they fell under his budget.
“This was shortly after I wrote a column reassuring the readers that whatever appeared in the paper would be my decision. Therefore, I saw the decision to take away the budget and staff as an excuse to clip my independence by subterfuge. Even though I explained to Iqbal ... the reason for my column — that I was communicating directly to my readers in the middle of the Alide storm — he used my column at the staff strategy session to insinuate that I was accusing him of editorial interference. Our relationship took a downturn. The last straw was when he wanted to write a column in all the titles ‘reassuring the readers’ of his intentions, and editors were asked to write another column agreeing with him. I refused and resigned.”
As Dasnois and Whitfield write, “Of all the newspapers in the Independent stable that week, the Sunday Independent was the only one in which the editor did not pen a column to accompany Survé’s effort.”
This is what an ethical journalist looks like, and indeed what ethical journalism looks like. One can imagine that government politicians seeking to influence the news editorial content at the SABC are as peevish as Survé about obstacles put in their way in their attempt to destroy editorial independence.
Another editor who resigned from Independent, Philani Mgwaba of The Mercury, described his motivation in Paper Tiger: “My private concerns turned to alarm when, soon after Iqbal Survé took control, editors began to receive instructions from Iqbal’s underlings and acolytes to publish opinion pieces that shamelessly flattered and promoted him and/or defended him from legitimate questions that were being raised about his curious business interests.”
According to SABC news, “Monare has questioned who made the decision that he be called to take part in a polygraph test at the SSA — just weeks before the elections. Monare has reiterated his position that he does not have a problem with the vetting of senior staff at the public broadcaster. ‘Whatever we do in our newsroom is in the context of media freedom, and therefore I did not understand why State Security agents would want to conduct a polygraph test on me. And even then I said to them, can you put in writing the rationale, the reasons, and who made the call? The supervisor or that agent called me to say look, the client — not us as State Security — made that kind of call. It’s not us. And I said who is the client? I’m still waiting for that answer to say who is that client who made that call.’”
My, how they must miss the heady days of Hlaudi Motsoeneng. The presidency, you’ll be surprised to know, has denied that Monare is being targeted by the SSA. As per a News24 story, “presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya rubbished the allegations at a Monday press briefing, saying the SSA vetted SABC executives before the appointment. Magwenya also said Monare had not completed the vetting process when he joined the public broadcaster and ‘stalled’ the process.
“‘Mr Monare’s predecessor, Ms Phathiswa Magopeni, who now serves on the board of directors of the SABC, went through a similar vetting process without any hitches. It is, therefore, not true that Mr Monare is being targeted ahead of the elections.’”
Except, well, he is being targeted, and arguably his predecessor shouldn’t have had to be vetted either. Magwenya also said that “the vetting process does not cover practising journalists or reporters at the SABC. Mr Monare is not a reporter at the SABC.”
This seems like nonsense to me. If your head of news isn’t a reporter, then he or she shouldn’t be head of news — unless your definition of “news” has less to do with journalism, and everything to do with state propaganda. Clearly, Monare makes editorial decisions at the
SABC. Therefore he is a journalist, no matter what chicanery the presidency or the SSA is trying to pull.
Campaign for Free Expression executive director Anton Harber has pointed out that the presidency blatantly said it would be messing with the media. He told the SABC — and one has to admire his subtle use of the word “say” in this quote — “It’s good that they say he’s not being targeted, but I don’t think it’s enough. What they need to do is call off the SSA, and re-look at the strange policy that requires journalists to be subjected to scrutiny by the SSA, intrusive scrutiny, unnecessary scrutiny, and what looks because of the timing suspiciously like pre-election harassment.
“It comes two years after he joined the SABC and started the job, it comes shortly after this incident where the
SABC ran audio of the president speaking behind closed doors when he was saying that they’re going to challenge any media that’s too critical of the ANC.”
One can only echo the call by the South African National Editors’ Forum to the SABC board: “As the body responsible for the SABC, we urge the SABC board to publicly condemn any interference in its editorial processes and to uphold their responsibility to protect the independence of the SABC. The head of news must be shielded from external pressures and political interference and be allowed to perform his editorial duties without fear or favour.”
Make no mistake, this is an issue worth fighting. We can’t let the state force any chinks into the buttress of press freedom that supports our democracy. If we’re letting the state use its security apparatus to pressure journalists, we’re inviting autocracy into our home. If we allow media capture, state capture 2.0 will inevitably follow.