The Samkele Masekos are helping to change the face of media

In the US, they speak of left-wing media and right-wing media. Every politician, every agenda and political movement has a supporter with influence in the media.

Sometimes it’s direct and thinly veiled, like some journalists, commentators and news anchors on Fox News and CNN. In other instances, it manifests in smaller media outlets financed by powerful interest groups.

But in a small country like ours, where discourse around media ownership is still a debate about race and monopoly, political or personal influence over editorial content in the news cycle does not appear to translate to a diversity of represented views, because there isn’t much space to occupy with only a handful of relied-upon brands that consumers turn to for their daily dose.

Instead, this very ordinary phenomenon of personal interests seeping into the work of journalism and money directing the angles of stories poses a great danger to an already torn society. We tend to shake our heads with concern at the state of affairs in other African countries, where media freedom and freedom of expression are encroached upon or denied.

This country was mildly concerned when allegations of state agents using media entities to further political agendas emerged during the election period in Botswana recently.

In South Africa we have all of the mechanisms that protect the media from the state, but perhaps not much machinery protecting people from the media, including those in its employ.

Labour laws are not enough, when the very people meant to espouse the constitutionally given right to freedom of expression can be seen to be abusing their power in order to deny this right to another person.

It also speaks to the need for a diversity of independently owned media, because one of the unique points of power held by South African media houses is they have a vast labour pool to choose from with widely available skills, especially on the side of journalism.

As an older and wiser acquaintance put it: talent notwithstanding, in the newsroom one is as replaceable as the buttons on one’s shirt. It’s a David and Goliath story, directed by Woody Allen. And in a country like South Africa, it is deeply personal, and the power dynamics are brutal.

Most journalists in this country are working class in terms of remuneration. They are breadwinners, first graduates, generational curse-breaking pioneers to their families and communities. Mothers, grandmothers and neighbours tune in to watch their children on TV or buy the newspapers bearing their bylines.

They are big deals to the communities they affect. But in their workspaces, they are elves in Santa’s factory. Cogs in large, unfeeling machines.

I think it’s an incredibly brave and dangerous thing to do, when you dare to challenge a power that pays your salary, and we should all be grateful to people like Samkelo Maseko to not go quietly to risk the rest of their careers, so that the rest don’t have to.

The rest can keep writing, producing and broadcasting, knowing that thanks to a handful of journalists, history is changing, feathers are being ruffled and their future is being changed for the better.

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