Business Day: Free but superficial media overlooks important stories

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=122039

Press freedom: Free but superficial media overlooks important stories
Anxieties reached a fever pitch in the wake of the deplorable arrest of journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika.

JACKIE DUGARD
Published: 2010/09/27 09:44:47 AM

IN RECENT weeks, South African media institutions have, understandably, been vociferously opposing the proposed Protection of Information Bill and media appeals tribunal, pointing to the stifling effect such changes are likely to have on access to information and on the fight against corruption.

Anxieties reached a fever pitch in the wake of the deplorable arrest of journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika, following his exposure of an apparently irregular lease for new police headquarters in Pretoria.

Somewhat lost in the flurry has been an appreciation of the fact that every day poor people attempt to hold government accountable and every day they face the kind of treatment meted out to Wa Afrika.

The print media is partly to blame for this obscuring as, to date, it has not represented such local struggles as anything other than sporadic “service delivery” protests when, in fact, they are becoming so commonplace as to represent a fully fledged rebellion of the poor.

As local community after local community comes to the end of its tether with the government’s failure to deliver on post-apartheid promises and erupts into violent protest, we are facing a fundamental challenge to our vastly inegalitarian political economy that all of us should reflect on.

Yet, this has not yet become the major subject of mainstream media coverage, prompting columnist Steven Friedman to ask: “Why do the media not use their freedom to give us the information we need?”

Indeed, while the media is correct to be concerned about the proposed limitations on access to information, it is complicit in an already present, and self-imposed, crisis of censorship through not providing the whole picture. It is not so much that it doesn’t cover such stories, but rather that there is a paucity of in-depth exposure and examination.

What we need is an informed analysis of poor people’s struggles against unresponsive and remote local government, including systemic exposure of community attempts to hold municipalities accountable.

We need to know that poor communities are currently doing society’s dirty work by trying to entrench participatory democracy, but their battles are going largely unnoticed and have thus far not been very effective.

We should be paying attention because, if conditions continue to deteriorate, we could face an appalling intensification of violence.

Moreover, we can avert this if we connect the dots and combine our efforts to forge a meaningful democratic order.

If this were the case we might, for example, see solidarity between rich ratepayers associations and poor township communities seeking better living conditions.

We might also begin to understand that the only true security is through greater integration and equality.

Researchers at the University of Johannesburg have recently undertaken “rapid response research” into four continuing struggles, analysing local protests in Balfour, Diepsloot, Piet Retief and Thokoza.

The research identifies three common features across all four case studies.

First, there are high levels of poverty and unemployment in each case.

Second, there is inadequate service delivery in all localities including water, sanitation, electricity and housing, as well as allegations of corruption.

Third, in all instances, protests only occurred after multiple attempts to engage local government over relevant problems.

Clearly, what are often called service delivery protests are as much about unaccountable local government as delivery.

This is especially evident in the protests in Piet Retief, where the residents of Thandakukhanya township sent a memorandum to the office of the premier of Mpumalanga in which they asked for: a copy of the municipality’s supply chain policy, an investigation into all procurement above R10000, as well as list of who sits on the tender bid committee, who appointed contractors especially for road projects, and which officials have municipality credit cards.

Many of these requests had been previously communicated to local and provincial government officials.

With no response received, the residents staged a peaceful protest, marching to the Piet Retief town hall to deliver the memorandum to the municipal officials, and a copy was sent to the premier.

The premier undertook to respond to the community’s concerns in an open meeting.

However, he failed to attend the meeting as promised, instead sending the MECs for co-operative governance and traditional affairs, and for sports and recreation.

The premier’s no -show prompted a second march by residents, but this time property was destroyed and two people were shot dead, allegedly by a traffic police officer and a security guard.

Similarly, in Siyathemba township in Balfour, things turned nasty after the municipality failed to respond to a community memorandum that had called for “proper clean water”, street lights and storm- water drainage, as well as information on expenditure and recruitment processes.

The resultant protests prompted a police crackdown, including allegations of severe police brutality, and charges of public violence were brought against the community leaders who had attempted to hold their municipality to account.

In the same month that charges against Wa Afrika were “temporarily” dropped — presumably due to public pressure and extensive media exposure — Siyathemba community members appeared in court to face the charges of public violence, having already spent six months with the threat of conviction hanging over them.

The vast majority of these charges were dropped by the prosecutor as unsubstantiated, but only after last-minute intervention by the Legal Aid Board and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (Seri), as well as the continuing efforts of the University of Johannesburg researchers.

Yet, notwithstanding some local coverage of incidents such as those in Piet Retief and Balfour, our escalating crisis of local democracy has not featured as a major story in the national print media.

As Prof Friedman recently complained, the print media seems obsessed with the actions of a few political figures rather than with analysing the patterns that shape where SA is headed.

The mainstream media’s blind spot is fully understood by activists.

In the words of an Anti-Privatisation Forum member: “We have the freedom to speak, but nobody listens.”

Nevertheless, despite their reservations about the media’s sincerity, activists understand that media freedom is in fact everyone’s freedom and have been vocal in their condemnation of the proposed changes.

It is all the more tragic that the media does not defend this broader freedom by providing coherent analysis about the underlying challenges to our democracy. Without such information, as media expert Jane Duncan has warned, we remain dangerously blind to our most serious problems.