Improve services, stamp out graft if you want better coverage

The Zuma administration appears to be about to start playing hardball with mainstream newspapers it believes are leading ''an anti-ANC and anti-government onslaught''.

According to the Mail & Guardian, a formal instruction to deny it, the Sunday Times and City Press millions of rands of government advertising ''is likely to come out as soon as the cabinet holds its lekgotla in January''.

Government officials have denied planning to drop advertising in "critical" newspapers and support those that are more ''friendly'' but confirm that a broader strategy of centralising the state's advertising spending through the Government Communication and Information System is to be implemented.

But the recent comments of ruling party leaders suggest that something more sinister might be afoot.

Bemoaning the "negative coverage" of the government by mainstream newspapers and calling for more ''balanced'' reportage, Lindiwe Zulu, head of the ANC's communications subcommittee, reportedly said: ''How do you pay people who insult you?''

Zulu and Blade Nzimande, the higher education minister, who reportedly complained that critical media were ''biting the hand that feeds them'', should know better.

Having a critical press as a check on the abuse of power by the powerful is central to the constitutional democracy that the ANC signed up for in 1994.

Moreover, the money that the government spends on communicating with citizens, or on promoting itself through advertising, is tax money, not government money.

The government might be tempted to punish its media critics and reward its ''friends'' but, by doing so, it could lay itself open to litigation.

A far more sensible way of ensuring better coverage would be to become more efficient, improve service delivery and stamp out corruption.