Panelists at media festival unpack the state of media freedom
"While the media in South Africa enjoys more freedom than many of their counterparts on the continent and other parts of the world, they still find themselves facing a barrage of attacks on a daily basis, physically and online."
October 19 will always be marked off on the calendars of journalists around the country.
This day commemorates Black Wednesday or National Press Freedom Day, and Media Monitoring Africa hosted a three-day media festival to tackle media-related issues in South Africa.
Media Monitoring’s programme manager and researcher Lister Namumba said in her presentation that South Africa ranked 35 in the press freedom index.
“According to the Press Freedom Index, last year South Africa ranked 32, meaning we’ve moved up three points. Last year, the index described South Africa’s press freedom as guaranteed but fragile, this year the same index described the country’s [press freedom] as guaranteed with a well-established culture of investigative journalism.
“In 2022, the index noted that journalists in South Africa have often been subjected to verbal attacks from political leaders and activists. Other concerns include not enough local sources in stories, and the lack of children’s quotes in positive stories.”
The director of South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) Reggy Molalusi said such momentous days were a time for Sanef to observe issues which affected the media.
“On World Press Day [May, 3] this year, we noticed that the South African media ranking was dropping compared to other regions regarding media freedom. In 2018, we were ranked 28 and now we’re 35 which is a worrying sign meaning in five years we dropped by seven points.”
Molalusi added that journalists being bullied and harassed by certain officials was very telling of the work still needed to be done to ensure that journalism was headed on a good path.
Head of programmes at Media Monitoring Thandi Smith noted that South Africa had a few victories to celebrate about the state of its media.
“We do have a few victories to celebrate due to civil society and the strides that have been made in maintaining media freedoms.
“This has been evident in the recent case at the Constitutional Court regarding the ‘analogue switch off’ case. The minister of communications was going to shut off our analogue signal – we’ve been talking about digital migration for over 10 years and we’re at the point where we do need to migrate from analogue to digital technologies but not to the detriment of those who still rely on analogue signals and the public broadcaster for their access to valuable and critical information.”
She concluded the media had won that case, and the switch-off date was delayed to ensure that the process was implemented properly and rationally which was a win for access to information and media freedom.
Related Article:
Media Freedom Festival tackles impact of disinformation on children
