Media giants must broaden range of opinions: COPE MP

There is a danger of “the haves and the have-nots” growing apart, and South Africa's democracy is at risk unless the big four media corporations start reflecting a diverse range of opinions in their newspapers, says Congress of the People MP Juli Killian.

Killian was speaking on the second day of parliament’s communications portfolio committee hearings on diversity and transformation in the print media on Friday.

On the first day of the hearings, the "big four" news corporations - Avusa, Media24, Independent Newspapers and Caxton – were accused of making life difficult for small newspapers by undercutting them and forcing many out of business.

Rhodes University journalism professor Jane Duncan said then that there was also a danger that the viewpoints of the elites could dominate if so few companies owned so much of the market.

Killian also asked media bosses if it was true that their top structures were too heavy, leaving reporters to battle in understaffed newsrooms. “That affects the quality of reporting as well,” she said.

Print Media South Africa’s president, Hoosain Karjieker (who is also the Mail & Guardian’s CEO), Avusa Media MD Mike Robertson, Media24 CEO Esmare Weideman and Caxton CEO Paul Jenkins said the "big four" were committed to transformation.

Weideman said the "big four" were investing heavily in websites and digital media in a bid to reach outlying communities, where people would more and more start reading newspapers on their cellphones.

Jenkins said that with the growth of the internet, the "big four" were competing in very big international markets - not a local market any longer. “All the international players cross over the wires and this market is not going to be contained. There is a great big issue that we are all battling with,” he said.

Robertson said: “There are a lot of places in the country that aren’t being listened to."

He said Print Media South Africa and the parliamentary committee should get together to find ways to start media for poorer communities.

Large sums of money were required to start newspapers. “Nobody is going to make a lot of money out of starting a newspaper for the large number of people who live in Orange Farm. You won’t get the advertisers … so you need to find other ways of addressing that. Left to pure commercial interests there will be large chunks of the country that won’t be covered, and there will be large audiences that will not be heard,” said Robertson.

The committee heard yesterday that although black ownership of the "big four" is only 14%, black editors number 65%. But committee chair Sikhumbuzo Kholwane asked them if they thought they still had “the luxury of time” to transform, given that by their own admission the media had not fully transformed, 18 years into democracy.

He also questioned the "big four’s" commitment to helping small community newspapers. “They are saying on the ground, practically, you are killing them,” said Kholwane.