The Guptas’ new newspaper raises a red flag

If any single issue should signal that there could be some solid substance in former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s State of Capture report rather than a bone of contention being worried from many sides, it would more than likely be given impetus by reports this weekend that the controversial Gupta family plan to launch a publicly funded newspaper devoted to publicising the merits of Mpumalanga.

It is distressing enough to read revelations that all the province’s departments would be expected to advertise in the proposed publication – if this intention indeed comes to fruition – the conclusion must logically be arrived at that it can only damage the credibility of the newspaper, even if it enhances the profiles of politicians by potentially downplaying news to the possible detriment of the provincial profile.

This, we would believe, is exactly the kind of coercive capitalism that Madonsela indicated in her report and goes to the central debate still raging over the disproportionate amount of government money that pours directly or indirectly into the Gupta’s flagship publication, The New Age.

Allied to this is the controversy of the funding of this particular publication’s highly touted broadcast business breakfasts as it has used the vehicle of the SABC and the public broadcaster’s production facilities in what is clearly a commercial enterprise.

The potential for the suppression of news in Mpumalanga, which could be regarded as detrimental to the province, also has resonance in the blanket ban on the SABC broadcasting self-proscribed scenes of violence at demonstrations.

Censorship in a democracy – whether for a political or pure profit motive – runs against the established principles of a free and unshackled media.

Anything other than preserving this hard-fought freedom runs against any accepted definition of press freedom and risks the danger of descending into the murky realm of self-seeking propaganda.