Media Flaws

It's Saturday. I'm driving down Koeberg road looking for a place called Plumblink. Find it. Get what I want whilst wondering why they sell taps without the tools to install them? Am I supposed to call a plumber to unscrew and screw in a new tap? So Ascort Hardware and Builders Warehouse were the next stops. I don't have a plumbing problem so to speak - I just want to replace my current kitchen tap.
 
Government, on the other hand, has major plumbing problems. On this same day, 17 September, it turns out media activists who've found a shelter, hijacked even, the Right2Know (r2k) campaign are trying to dismantle government's already leaky pipes. These apparent plumbers don't want these pipes sealed nor replaced - they want them gone. Flood the house with water.
 
Imagine this water to be information. Imagine the plumber to be the media. Imagine you live in an information age. Imagine the media is the one that will control this water’s flow - mediate it. Reappropriate it. How do you begin to put your faith in one self-appointed man to report information which they dislodged from a context on your behalf and transformed into news? Do you have faith in literary plumbing?
 
Anyway, on Saturday a public protest against the Protection of Information Bill took place in Cape Town - media voices joined in droves; some even from the Highway Africa conference, some from the South African National Editors Forum, some independent, the whole bang bang was there seemingly unaware of the complexity of their involvement and how their presence might be misinterpreted. Their motives might seem nationalist but scratch deeper and you’ll find theirs is to sell. Sell division. Sell stereotypes. Sell fear. Sell you your nightmares and package them as public interest. Yet it’s not public interest, it’s public scopophilia they serve. Feed the eyes of the audience, sell it what it can't avoid looking at: "Government is corrupt!", "Government is corrupt!", "Government is corrupt!" 

To even begin to scream for a Public Interest Defence is to ignore the fact that you a) have no public or assumed homogenous mass of beings to serve and b) it’s solicited interest. To demand things such as press freedom on behalf of an imagined public is beyond me. Are we assuming an indolent citizenry and speaking on its behalf? Are we assuming they do not want to know and need to be told they want to know?

Who is this government we protest against anyway? Isn't government the will of the majority? Isn't government us? Isn't this a democracy? Is this to protest against the will of the majority? Government leaders can easily turn and say: "Look at the media, it marches against the will of the majority, against you - who do they represent? Don't trust the media!" Easily. Such seemingly anti-government protests aren't as simple, because your protest subject is not clearly defined. Who are you fighting, if not fighting the majority?

I understand that the Right2Know campaign is not the media, but because many voices in the media have backed it, Right2Know is now hugely synonymous with South African Media in the minds of many. A friend I'd asked to come join me to see this march blew this invitation off by saying it's for white self-serving interests that seek to hold on to privilege through the power of information, motivated by Zuma-intolerance, backed by the opportunistic Democratic Alliance. Not in these exact words, though. Is this the image members of the media want to be associated with? If members of the media are genuine with this need to know, how about they mobilise society to vote for another party that will allow you to know?

The answer to this question is exactly the point I’m driving at: The Image of the Media in the Media.

If you, the media, were to actively mobilise society to vote for another party this would immediately unmask your political agenda – what are you saying about yourself? Journalists must be careful about how they posture their own public image. You cannot be journalists seen to be holding hands with Democratic Alliance leaders, anti-Zuma factionalists and bashing Zuma puppets publicly. You erode your own credibility in the eyes of that majority that voted for the present government.

And don't think it wasn't apparent how hard the media tried to exclude the hundreds of DA members in their midst on Saturday. The pictures, camera angles were all looking for a black face and actively avoiding the blue shirts and hundreds of concerned white citizens. The journalists didn't bother to show you the rented taxis from Khayelitsha nor interview some of the black children invited - who didn't even know why they were there - just that government is bad or "lasisi uthe masihambe naye size apha [that lady just called us and said let's come here]!" That audience was anything but a true representation of this country and of how the majority feels. I do not claim to know how majority feels, and neither should the media. But engineering reality for newssake is to mislead. Reappropriating an image or information to suit your agenda - to give the impression it's largely the majority of the country that opposes this bill? That's not true and is an example of the danger of our media - the danger of mediated information. And partly why government would want to censor some of this information, to protect it from this form of manipulation by the media.

In fact, how about journalists stay out of these protests? Do their jobs - narrate the complex implications of this bill to all, highlight the work being undertaken by bodies such as Avaaz.org and the Right2Know campaign. Yes, the Protection of Information Bill, in its current form, has far reaching consequences beyond journalists. But journalists are making it about them. Let opposition parties, academics, civic society, NGOs, you name them, oppose such. This is not to deny journalists citizenship, it's about being rational on the unbias nature of their work. Surely a media that can report such threats and complexity effectively can garner concern nationally. But no, it seems this media wants to report itself. Be the news.

Think about this.

The implications of such protests do more harm to the public image of the media, and shift attention from the justified cause – access to information – to politically motivated journalists.

Anyway, I digress. I now have a new kitchen tap. I installed it myself.