Minister Essop Pahad
Remarks: 21st
anniversary gala dinner of City Press
16
May 2003
The President has asked me to convey
his deep regret for his inability to attend the important proceedings
tonight. This is because of the unexpected and sad responsibilities
he must discharge in the period up to and including the burial of
Tata Walter Sisulu, our beloved, revered and fallen leader, father
and comrade.
As we speak here, Tata Sisulu’s
body lies in state at the Holy Cross Hall in Orlando West, providing
the last opportunity for all those who were closest to him, and
the population of Soweto, to say their final farewell. It would
not be right that the President of the ANC and the President of
the Republic, should be absent from this solemn occasion.
It is invariably a pleasure to be present
on occasions when newspapers celebrate in the South African democratic
environment, for they generally do so in great, and convivial, style.
They are not known for undue modesty, either, particularly in these
days of freedom, in trumpeting their own achievements.
When they reach milestones or earn
awards, they make it their business to let the world know about
it in no uncertain measure. In fact, perhaps politicians should
take a leaf out of the media book, when it comes to effective public
relations.
You will all know that this was not
always the case in South Africa, where traditional patterns of entrenched,
sectional readership tended to make at least the mainstream newspapers
complacent, comfortable and not overly marketed. They were ensconced
in their own distinct readerships, with relatively few of them –
with exceptions like the Rand Daily Mail – consciously reaching
out across the racial and ideological divides. They were thus broadening
their impact on society and fostering wider-ranging debate and a
varied interpretation of observed reality, reflecting our diverse
society.
And, of course, some even more courageous
journalism was bludgeoned into oblivion by the then government -
witness the banning of the Guardian, New Age, Spark, Africa South,
the World etc. Happily an editor of the calibre of Percy Qoboza
was later able, after the banning of the World, to bring his talents
and courage to City Press and to give it new direction and relevant
impetus before his untimely death at age 50 while still in harness
there.
Generally speaking, newspapers in those
sombre days were not vigorously marketed. In fact, a prominent newspaper
figure once said dismissively of apartheid-era newspapers in South
Africa: "They are bought, not sold". This aptly summed
up the rather reticent approach that newspaper managements adopted
in those days when it came to marketing their products and blowing
their own trumpets.
The established newspapers were, with
exceptions, simply house journals of the white power structure.
Black titles had to withstand and contend with huge official and
unofficial pressures, if they remotely reflected the feelings of
those so grossly excluded from national life.
But we now live in a very different
era. It is open season for greater newspaper diversity and for the
ferment of free ideas. The rising tide of literacy, and non-racial
co-operation in an environment of unqualified free expression, brings
with it a growing self-confidence among the media, and also, it
seems, it brings a new breed of brash tabloids, a new bustling approach
to marketing, and even the odd throaty cry of self-congratulation
on the part of many media.
The growing diversity, in terms of
titles produced (if not, yet, in terms of numbers of powerful newspaper
groups), makes for some stepped-up competition, and with it an urgent
need to improve the journalism that is the undeniable lifeblood
of newspapers. The advent of website and email journalism, the effects
of TV and talk radio and the strong hold of freesheets at community
level, all such factors place new pressures on the mainstream media.
When the Media Diversity and Development
Agency gets into its stride – thanks partly to the exemplary
generosity of the Media24/Naspers group and some other houses -
the number of titles, particularly at local and community level,
is likely to increase. This will make the media marketplace an even
more bustling place, to the benefit of the readers, but the situation
will require foresight and sensitivity by newspaper houses in dealing
with the new competitiveness.
In some cases, the self-congratulation
by the media, which I have already mentioned, is fully justified.
It is, in the first place, usually patently obvious to readers,
who were not born yesterday. But the media themselves must be the
judge. In cases where media have indulged in material error it is
up to them, under the ever-watchful eye of readers and viewers,
to correct this promptly and handsomely – which, surely, does
not mean publishing obscure paragraphs on obscure pages, but with
a prominence that is in proportion to the error committed. You can
often judge the quality of a newspaper simply by the spontaneity
and prominence with which the editor deals with corrections and
apologies.
Against this background, and particularly
taking into account its recent history, I would suggest that City
Press has a record that can rightly be celebrated tonight. I say
this for several reasons. For one thing, its by-line writers are
so clearly reflective of the majority of our country that this amounts
to setting an example to others in corrective action. Black papers,
many of them, used to be largely ghosted by white staffs, and this
applied almost across the board, except in the early days of a genuinely
indigenous press generations ago. This put the focus on what these
ghost writers believed black readers were interested in.
Almost invariably, the fare offered
the hapless black readers was made up of a menu of stories about
crime, sex, booze, popular music, deformity, witchcraft, bizarre
incidents, soccer, immoral priests, and sexy pictures – all
informed by the editorial determination that the more sensational,
the better! A street poster in a black-orientated paper many years
ago summed up such intentions: "CRIPPLED BOY RAPED BY BOGUS
ONE-ARMED MAJOR". It involved crudely borrowing from, and adapting
for assumed African conditions, the stock Fleet Street "recipes"
for successful tabloid journalism. In the English culture this is
summed up by the poster: "BLONDE FOUND STRANGLED WITH MCC TIE".
You will note the touch of class.
What all this meant, in South African
conditions, was that the more dramatic and sustained the story was,
that black people are criminals, that they are sex-crazy and morally
depraved, perpetually inebriated, given to grooving through the
night, rather than focused on serious matters of society and state,
and so on, the more the black newspapers would succeed as popular
publications and prosperous business ventures.
But, of course, the more the black
publications of the day dished this out, the more they had to feed
the tiger, the more they had to outdo themselves in finding or inventing
more lurid stories, and the more they helped to entrench the racist
view that the black people were, in actuality, the insulting caricatures
reflected on their pages.
I have no doubt that these publications
played no small part in persuading especially the black youth to
accept and behave according to the negative images of their people
portrayed by these publications. Unfortunately, significant sections
of our media have not broken with this terrible past.
A lot of what we read, hear and see
about our country and the rest of Africa is, in fact, informed by
the stereotype of the urban and rural African, so fervently promoted
in the past by a supposedly black press. This does not appear to
be the case with City Press in 2003, as a glance both at the list
of editorial figures listed on its masthead, and the subjects covered
will confirm.
Without doubt, the paper has nurtured
a tradition of independent and newsy journalism (sometimes maybe
just a bit sensational – which seems to be the lot of weekend
journalism). And the role played in this independent and newsy journalism
by the Editor, Vusi Mona, deserves recognition.
On the subject of understanding
the role of the media in Africa, I feel we can, with benefit, take
note of some thought-provoking remarks by our President recently,
at the Africa conference on elections, democracy and governance
on 7 April. He drew attention to the fact that other countries sometimes
prescribe democratic "musts" for Africa , and yet do not
always live up to them themselves.
He put it this way:
"In a sense, the
challenge we face is to understand why the ‘rulebook of democratic
musts’ applies unevenly as between ourselves and other
countries of the North …
"This requires
as objective an understanding of African reality as possible, not
for the purpose of abandoning the ‘rulebook of democratic musts’,
but to answer the question concretely – how shall these rules
be translated into practice?"
Journalists in Africa
and SA could usefully ponder his words, and perhaps offer their
thoughts, and not just leave it to party-political hacks to respond.
For the President added:
"I believe it also requires that we understand that the democratic
system is a form of social organisation, and not one that is separate
from and independent of other factors that combine to define any
particular society. It is both a product of and exists within the
context of the evolution of particular societies. By definition,
it is based on and reflects the varied social forces and ideas that
characterize any society. It is a supremely human creation
The ownership of City Press –
which dates back to the days of the same Jim Bailey who made Drum
magazine famous and an African reality far beyond our borders –
is currently in sound hands. Following the democratic dispensation,
the owners and managers have made real and sincere endeavours to
meet the requirements of the new dispensation, including embracing
the BEE strategy and opening their eyes to the possibilities that
lie ahead in the African continent. In these and other ways, they
have been part of an impressive Afrikaner advance into the new,
democratic order; an advance that, a decade or so ago, would not
have seemed remotely possible.
The company under the guidance of people
like Ton Vosloo and Koos Bekker has developed a caring attitude
toward its staff, and is judged a good employer. Many of its titles
have been prepared to see the errors of their apartheid-supporting
past (who, even in the recent past, would have expected a eulogy
to Walter Sisulu from Die Burger, which saw him as a respected,
calming figure whose death united most South Africans in mourning?),
and to move into a broadly supportive position in relation to the
new democratic South Africa.
It is, I must admit, invidious for
politicians to praise newspapers. This can be the "kiss of
death", certainly as seen by journalists universally, with
their characteristic streetwise cynicism. But permit me to venture
just a few thoughts about this newspaper and its parent group.
Currently, this group’s papers
can in no sense be seen as giving knee-jerk party-political support
to the government. But when it comes to critical national issues,
they invariably happen to find themselves in honest alignment with
the national interest, which is something totally distinct from
party interest. No one in a democracy expects media to be the mouthpiece
of government. We have our Government Communication and Information
System for that, and GCIS is doing very nicely.
From all accounts,
the paper is doing well and, although it may face competition even
from within the media house that owns it – the sort of intra-house
competition that is healthy - it seems well set to be around for
another 21 years, and more. Loving sport as it does, it will have
a grand time of it when, strongly supported by the Cabinet, the
bidders for the 2010 Soccer World Cup have their expected success;
with maybe the Commonwealth Games to follow.
City Press is very
much part of the reality of the new South Africa, a country that
is moving inexorably ahead, in terms of the economy, the strength
of the rand, attraction of tourism, political stability, and other
factors, all of which influence the ever-higher ratings which we
receive on the international stage. This is in no way to underrate
the serious problems which we still face, part-inherited and part-new,
as our nation seeks, for instance, to generate jobs, to revive blighted
rural regions, to grapple with issues to do with the basic health
of the nation, and to help the process of securing peace and stability
in Africa.
I am certain that the owners, managers
and editorial staff of City Press are conscious of the fact that
the reading public in our country, both black and white, is changing,
in all respects. Gradually, it is becoming more prosperous. It is
becoming more educated.
It has better access to information
about what is happening at home, in the rest of Africa and elsewhere
in the world. It has access to a greater range of information and
misinformation about everything.
It is better able to think independently,
no longer dependent on a narrow range of sources of knowledge. It
has greater possibilities publicly to state its views. To understand
this, one only has to listen to the phone-in programmes on our different
radio stations.
Because our country is necessarily
deeply involved in the process of fundamental social transformation,
your readers are very interested to understand where their country
will be tomorrow. This is because this would help them to understand
where they, as individual South Africans, will be tomorrow.
Passing sensations, however dramatic
the headlines in City Press, are not necessarily of great interest
to them. I am certain that an important part of what would help
City Press to increase its circulation and profits would be if it
could convince its present and potential readers that it provides
the accurate information and relevant opinions that help its readers
to have accurate and reliable information about what is likely to
happen to these readers, today and tomorrow, with regard to significant
elements of their daily lives.
Sensationalist voyeuristic stories,
however presented, are not necessarily of any real and lasting interest
to your readers, whatever your advertising and circulation consultants
might tell you. Among other things, what you will have to understand
is that you have competing communicators, such as my colleagues
and I, who serve in our legislatures and government institutions.
In this regard, whatever the major
domestic and international corporations think of their prowess,
with regard to any matter, I would like to assure you that, whatever
their financial resources and the means they use, both foul and
fair, they will find it difficult to defeat us on the issue of telling
the truth about the situation in our country.
Every day we are out there among the
people, in our thousands, from the national, provincial and local
spheres of government, and the many institutions of state, such
as the state corporations and other bodies. Whether you know and
report this or not, every day all of us are communicating with the
people.
We listen and talk to them about their
daily problems. We talk to them about what is being done every day
to address these problems. We have the great advantage that we can
back up our words with practical examples of things that have been
or are being done, which the people will confirm from their own
direct experience.
If, for the sake of a sensational headline
and the hope of increased circulation and greater profit, City Press
decides to tell stories inconsistent with the experience of the
people, such as, "The government has failed the poor",
the people it seeks to convince, its readers, will not be convinced,
in part because the government will go out among the people to present
its own case.
In the end, all that will happen will
be that the readers will lose confidence in the credibility of the
newspaper, except in its reportage of soccer results. Of course
we, the political representatives would be kicked out of power,
if the electors lost confidence in our credibility and relevance.
This serves to impose a particular discipline in everything we say
and do, without falling victim to the temptation to resort to populism.
It may be useful to bear this in mind
that, as a movement and a people, we fought a successful struggle
for our liberation, stretching over many decades. Our victory was
not attributable either to the commercial or the then state media.
The masses of our people know this, and therefore do not depend
on the media to decide what is best for them. I say this not to
underestimate the contribution made by some in this media to oppose
apartheid, which we sincerely appreciated and readily acknowledge.
We will persist in our struggle for
the success of the reconstruction and development of our country.
This struggle will succeed, whatever the positions of the commercial
media and the public broadcaster. I am certain that your readers
would find it most strange that you are not part of the process
of changing their lives for the better, if ever you decided to adopt
this posture.
At the same time, I must assure you
that this matter is entirely in your hands. The government will
do nothing to compromise your independence and your right to take
your own decisions, as you see fit. Apart from anything else, we
have every reason to hope that you, like other media organisations
in our country, will succeed as business ventures.
Your success in this regard would help
to guarantee that, apart from responding to such developments as
technological improvements, you will not add to the problem of unemployment,
by retrenching members of your staff, including the managers.
I trust you will also respect our own
independence as a government, which includes our right to take our
own decisions, bearing in mind our accountability to the masses
who elected us, who are the same masses that fought and died for
the freedom that we all enjoy, including the freedom of the press,
that we, ourselves, deliberately ensured and guaranteed in our Constitution
and have protected in our laws.
We have gone further to improve access
to information, both for the media and our people as a whole, within
the context of a law-governed process, justiciable in our courts.
At the same time, we will continue to insist on the principle of
equality before the law, refusing to accept the proposition that
the media has a special and unique right to exclude information
from our courts, that is relevant to the suppression and punishment
of crime, as defined in our Constitution and statutes.
When our President spoke recently at
a meeting of African Editors who were convened by SANEF, he said
that he assumed that the Editors were Africans before they became
editors, and that even as editors, they remained Africans.
I must also assume that those associated
with City Press, from the owners to the cleaners, were South Africans
before they became City Press, and remain South Africans.
Accordingly, I must presume that you
love your country and people as much as American, French, British
and other journalists and media people love their countries and
peoples. I must assume that you want your people and mine to succeed
in their efforts to improve their lives and to turn ours into a
winning country.
I trust that you do not suffer from
the strange disease that has afflicted some of our people since
our liberation in 1994, including some in the current system of
governance, according to which these are convinced that their happiness
and sense of personal integrity lies in the virulence with which
they can denigrate their own country, presenting it to all and sundry
in the worst light possible.
With no facts whatsoever to back their
claims, some of these readily invent and communicate stories about
South Africa being the worst in the world with regard to one negative
factor or another. Strangely and interestingly, it does not take
long for much of our media to echo these allegations, as though
they are factual, with no effort of any kind to check the stories
they print or broadcast. I know that City Press is not entirely
free of this disease.
The barrack-room story is told that,
having successfully concluded difficult negotiations with his Japanese
counterparts in Tokyo, a British businessman decided to spend an
evening with a geisha woman somewhere in the city. The Japanese
business negotiators had favoured him with a chauffer-driven Lexus
limousine, to enable him to explore the city and all its delights
for 24 hours every day.
In the meantime, they would be plotting
in secret to attach the Pound symbol to the Yen profit column, and
append the Yen symbol to the cost column, which they knew was designated
in Pounds. As an Indian, I am perfectly familiar with such sharp
practice, which timid business people would describe as being in
conflict with the King principles of good corporate governance.
In this regard, and respecting the
fundamental principles of the market economy, I would say that nobody
has a right to undermine the principle that business is business,
and free enterprise is free enterprise. I admire and approve of
the strategy and tactics of the Japanese business people, as they
relate to the story I am faithfully reporting to you. In truth,
I would not mind if I could take the place of the British businessman,
and have the opportunity to visit a geisha, travelling in a chauffer-driven
Lexus, in Tokyo.
Excitedly, the British businessman
did something with the geisha that I dare not describe in detail
in such distinguished and polite company. Fortunately, as journalists,
it is part of your occupational hazard to have great imagination
and the gift of describing in great detail what you have not actually
seen or experienced.
Given my deep respect for your powers
of imagination, I have no need to describe to you what happened
that night in Tokyo, between the British businessman and the Japanese
geisha. In this regard, I would advise that you pay no attention
whatsoever to Puccini’s Opera, "Madame Butterfly".
The geisha in our story had learnt
the most necessary English words and phrases from a pocket-sized
Phrase Book, entitled "Teach Yourself Essential English".
In reality it taught American English, presumably because of the
presence of American military bases in Japan.
To return to our true story, the British
businessman did whatever virile men do on such occasions, and concluded
this particular business after only a few seconds of beginning to
do what such men do with Japanese geishas. In this context, I would
like to inform you that I have no personal experience of this, despite
the fact that I have visited Japan.
Surprised at the speed with which the
British businessman completed the set course, at a speed faster
than the one attained by the winner of the gold medal at the last
summer Olympics 100 metres race, the geisha recalled one of the
phrases in her "Teach Yourself Essential English" booklet
and exclaimed:
"Are you finish?"
The British businessman sprang from
the geisha’s mat with unaccustomed velocity and alacrity, and
with obvious horror written all over his face. In the booming voice
he had used when he drilled new recruits as sergeant major in the
1st Regiment of the Royal Fusiliers, when he was still
in the British army, he replied:
"Good God, no!.. Finnish?.. I’m
British!"
Thus did the weak understanding of
English, and the disapproval of British performance by the geisha
concerned help a particular neighbourhood of Tokyo to understand
the patriotism of British businessmen, even as they would be standing
stark naked in a traditional Japanese setting, inspired by the cinematic
British representation of The Full Monty, rather than the hot-bloodied
geisha, somewhere in Tokyo.
I have listened to comments made at
dinner parties in Tokyo that the British businessman reacted in
the manner he did because he feared that his Japanese counterparts
would offer the supposedly lucrative deal he had struck earlier
in the day, to a Finnish company – hence the energy and alacrity
of his response.
However, I believe the alternative
story that I heard at a dinner party in Tokyo, told by resident
French businessmen, that the geisha believes that the word she should
have used was "brutish", rather than "finish".
Evidently, she said that her long and
varied experience had taught her that British and American men,
and other Anglo-Saxons – among whom I do not belong, thank
God! - push out their chests in pride, and nothing else, and stand
at attention, when the geishas of Tokyo purr, in seductive voices,
"you brute!"
This expression is on page 1 of the
booklet, "Teach Yourself Essential English", which informs
the female Japanese reader about what she should say to embarrass
and frustrate any London bobby or NYPD officer, who might arrest
her for shoplifting or any other alleged misdemeanour, while she
is visiting London or New York.
Please understand that I am not by
any means suggesting that Ton Vosloo, Koos Bekker or Vusi Mona,
or anyone else associated with City Press, both male and female,
should go to Tokyo to proclaim in front of a geisha:
"Good God, no!.. Finnish?.. I’m
South African!"
What I would like to suggest is that
having reached the age of maturity – I nearly said the age
of consent – City Press should set itself the objective to
improve on its good record, to become the best among the best, refusing
to compete to be the best of the worst.
It would be a matter of great pride
to all of us as South Africans if we could say to all, that we take
pride in the City Press because of the quality of its journalism,
the relevance and accuracy of its reportage and opinions, the informed
nature of its independent and vigorous criticism, its commitment
to the transformation of our country, the understanding of its accountability
to the nation, and its success as a viable business operation.
In this case, whatever mistaken opinion
the geisha may have had about City Press, perhaps claiming that
because it is so good, it must be Japanese, even in circumstances
in which we had been obliged to honour the journalist’s principle
of full exposure…of whatever…, we would be proud to proclaim:
"Good God, no!..Japanese?.. We
are South African!"
I would like to mark this auspicious
occasion by proposing that tonight we stand on our hind legs, to
drink a toast to this real South African, and not a Japanese, institution,
City Press, as it celebrates its age of mature consent, with the
assertion that we are South African!
Issued by
The Presidency
16 May 2003
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