ANC's big guns aimed at media

The ANC has reintroduced its controversial plan to establish a media appeals tribunal to clip the wings of the press.

The ruling party rolled out its big guns - Gwede Mantashe, Jackson Mthembu and Jessie Duarte - at the Press Freedom Commission in Johannesburg yesterday to vigorously argue the case for a tribunal - but this time with parliamentary oversight.

The three senior ANC members insisted that the current self-regulatory mechanisms, such as the Press Ombudsman and the Press Council of SA, were not strong enough to regulate the print media and protect the public from unfair reporting.

The ANC made its submission as another controversial intervention, the Protection of State Information Bill, was heavily criticised at public hearings in Cape Town yesterday.

For the first time since mooting the tribunal at its elective conference in 2007, the ANC yesterday offered concrete indications of the kind of body it wanted.

Mthembu, referring to the public protector, auditor-general and the Independent Electoral Commission, said it could take the form of a Chapter 9 institution with parliament in an oversight role.

He said the ANC envisaged that the tribunal would impose heavier sanctions on journalists and newspaper editors found to be in breach of the press code and the constitution, as opposed to merely forcing offending publications to apologise, as was the case now.

Mantashe said that, though the ANC wanted an independent appeals body to complement the Press Ombudsman's regulatory activities, parliament should be allowed to oversee the tribunal.

"One of the threats in our society is allergy to parliament, that everything must be independent of the government and parliament. I don't think that society must be allergic to parliament getting involved," Mantashe said.

"What we are saying is that, when we come up with a mechanism to regulate the print media, it should be independent, but we should not exclude parliament completely."

Duarte said media institutions did not want to be accountable to anyone but themselves.

She said that the tribunal would allow anyone - not only politicians - to ask for assistance if they had been offended by something that had been published.

The ANC's argument was made despite a statement by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe in October 2010 that a review of the powers of the Press Ombudsman, then under way, would help determine whether there was a need for a tribunal.

''If the process of reviewing the self-regulatory mechanisms produces mechanisms that can address the concerns about its shortcomings, we see no difficulty in accepting that right product, whatever it is, so we are in a sense allowing the space for the media to attend to that challenge," Motlanthe said at the time.

Mantashe yesterday became entangled in an exchange with former chief justice Pius Langa, the commission's chairman, about the use of the word "oversight".

Langa questioned whether the "oversight" envisaged by the ANC would qualify the proposed tribunal to be regarded as an independent body.

Langa asked if it was a good idea to suggest that parliament, in which the ANC held a majority, should oversee the tribunal.

But Duarte rushed to Mantashe's defence and said parliament was not a single-party institution and that it was fairly represented by other political parties.

"What is of concern to us is that an eminent person like yourself [Langa] would have a concern about parliament's oversight in its entirety, and it is not entirely true that parliament cannot be an independent oversight body."

Mthembu jumped in, asking Langa if he believed in no media accountability, to which he answered: "No, no, I'm not saying that."

Mthembu took another swipe at the print media, criticising it for not being transformed.

"We cannot have a press which is totally white, which doesn't recognise women in this country. Print media is gender- and racially-depressing."

Mmusi Maimane, the DA's national spokesman, said his party would oppose the proposed appeals tribunal.

"Any institution set up by the state, reliant on the state for funding, comprising deployed cadres and accountable to politicians, cannot be independent.

"We have seen how cadre deployment has undermined the independence of Chapter 9 institutions in the past," he said.

Bantu Holomisa, president of the United Democratic Movement, said "institutional reforms", research and an assessment were needed to address the weaknesses and challenges faced by the print media.

Though the media were often guilty of biased reporting, Holomisa said, print media regulation should be implemented with caution.

"We must never capitulate under pressure exerted by certain individuals who abuse taxpayers' money - like those who benefited from the arms deal, Oilgate and the Eskom-Hitachi-Chancellor House deal.

"The media had a critical role in exposing these wrongdoings. If it were not for the media, we would all be blissfully unaware that we are being fleeced. We cannot support any attempts to suppress such scandals and 'the regulation of the media' should not be abused as a tool to stop the truth from getting out," Holomisa said.

In a submission on behalf of Avusa, owners of The Times and Sunday Times, editor-in-chief Mondli Makhanya, who is also SA National Editors' Forum chairman, said strengthening self-regulation was the best option because it did not have the potential to infringe on the freedom of the press.

Responding to the ANC's statements that the Press Ombudsman's only penalty was to force newspapers to apologise, Makhanya said publishing an apology was the worst punishment a journalist could face.

He said he would rather pay a fine than print a retraction.