Zille administration deals fight for press freedom a blow

The Western Cape provincial government's bizarre decision to stop its subscription to the Cape Times - on the grounds that the quality of its reportage has deteriorated sharply of late - is an unexpected boon for the ANC.

"For some time now, the DA has attacked the Independent Newspaper Group to which Cape Times belongs, accusing it of being pro-ANC ... all in an effort to ensure that only voices sympathetic to the DA and its cause are heard in society," trumpeted Zizi Kodwa, the ruling party's national spokesman.

Marius Fransman, the ANC's Western Cape leader, went further, describing the decision by the DA-controlled provincial government as ''another rash measure to curb freedom of the media and free speech''.

This is a little rich coming from a party which forced through parliament the ''Secrecy Bill'', which criminalises reportage on purportedly sensitive state information.

Reports last year suggested that steps would be taken by the national government to deny publications critical of it, such as the Mail & Guardian, the Sunday Times and City Press millions of rands of advertising revenue as part of a strategy to centralise the state's advertising spending through the Government Communication and Information System.

The government denied that it wanted to starve critical media of revenue and reward its allies, but hackles were raised by comments attributed to leading ANC figures such as Lindiwe Zulu (''How do you pay people who insult you?'') and Blade Nzimande, who complained that critical media were ''biting the hand that feeds them''.

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has dealt the fight for press freedom a blow with this petty directive targeting the Cape Times. Whatever issues she has with the newspaper - and by all accounts there are several - should have been taken up with its new editor.

What is to stop the ANC, in the eight provinces it controls, from emulating the self-serving actions of the DA in Western Cape?