Comment

Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 28, 2012 at 10:06am

Boycott fails, but City Press agrees to drop 'The Spear'

By Phillip De Wet | Mail & Guardian Online – 3 hours ago

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Editor Ferial Haffajee confirmed on Monday that the painting would be coming down soon.

"I just need a bit of time to do it," Haffajee said.

She told Sapa she would post a column on the website about her decision. Earlier, Haffajee told Talk Radio 702 how her stance on publishing an image with President Jacob Zuma's genitals had shifted. She said the debate had become a clash, and the publication did not want to be part of that. It wanted to be part of restoring calm.

She was also concerned about the personal safety of the newspaper's vendors, and journalists, saying newspapers had been set alight over the weekend in response to ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe's call for a boycott of the paper.

It will be up to two weeks before City Press has a final count of how many newspapers it sold on on Sunday, but anecdotal evidence suggests the ANC's call for a boycott largely failed. But that may not prevent the ANC from at least partially getting its way, as attitudes towards the now-infamous painting of Zuma continue to evolve.

Sold out Outlets in Gauteng and the Western Cape sold out of copies of City Press before noon on Sunday, with some vendors and garage stores reporting record demand. Many said customers bought two or more copies at a time, in a spontaneous show of defiance against the call by Mantashe for "all peace-loving South Africans" to boycott the paper.

Both in townships and middle-class suburbs, buyers bought the paper without any fear of retribution. Some said they had never bought it before, but felt they had to show opposition to the boycott. Others were regular readers who said the ANC's call would not alter their behaviour.

Street vendors polled in Johannesburg and Pretoria reported no censure as they displayed the paper, and said tips from buyers were slightly higher than usual.

City Press said it had received only three reports of signs outside stores or workers telling customer not to buy the paper, none of which were considered serious.

"We are very grateful that it went down without any real trouble," said Haffajee.

In some areas, mostly in well-to-do shopping centres, large numbers of the paper remained unsold into the afternoon. But an equal or larger number of unsold copies of the Sunday Times pointed to that being a matter of over-stocking rather than a customer boycott.

Unforced removal Yet the City Press said it would this week remove the image of the now-infamous The Spear painting from its website after all. Haffajee said she would meet with the South African Communist Party, among others, during the course of Monday, and would post a column on the paper's website explaining the decision.

"You'd have to be blind not to see that there is a level of political game-playing going on, and that there is some position bargaining here, but there is also a lot of very real and deep pain that has coalesced around this painting for some reason," she said on Sunday. "We've had the big debates, and I don't want to dig in my heels in."

Removing the image from the website would satisfy half the ANC's demand. It also wants an apology from the City Press for publishing it in the first place. That it may find harder to extract.

There were also some signs of a softening attitude from the ANC on Sunday.

Spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said the party was going ahead with a planned march on the Goodman Gallery on Tuesday, but would not demand the removal of the rest of Brett Murray's exhibition Hail to the Thief II, even though its use of ANC imagery and icons has earned it a tongue-lashing.

"All we are saying is that we hope people can come to the realisation that this [painting] is insulting," said Mthembu. "If people don't feel the pain this has caused, maybe they didn't understand when they did this. All they have to do is say that now they understand, that they are sorry that they caused that pain, and act like people who are sorry."

Opposition plot That differs substantially from party rhetoric last week, which framed the painting (and the entire exhibition) as an intentional, racially-motivated insult to black people in general, and the ANC by way of Zuma in particular. Various party leaders said the painting had been displayed in service of a Democratic Alliance plan to unseat the ANC.

But Jackson reiterated that the party would continue its boycott on City Press – including refusing to grant its journalists interviews – until the matter was settled, and would also not be satisfied by anything short of a firm commitment from the Goodman Gallery to not display the painting again, even in its vandalised form. Such a concession, he said, would be an important symbolic gesture and possibly a way of maintaining the peace amid a volatile situation.

"We are engaging with this on various platforms, in the courts and so forth. Other people, you never know what they can do when they are totally outraged. We don't want to reach those levels where people are showing their outrage through doing things that all of us will be sorry about."

The ANC, with the support of Cosatu, plan to gather at Zoo Lake in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning for a short march to the art gallery in Rosebank. Should the gallery apologise and drop its opposition to a court interdict banning the display of the painting, Mthembu said, the march would likely still go ahead as an opportunity to celebrate.

Disclosure: Ferial Haffajee was the editor of the Mail & Guardian until mid-2009. Phillip de Wet has in the past been a paid freelance contributor to City Press.

Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 26, 2012 at 7:46am

US radio correspondent, translator held in Ethiopia        

A Voice of America (VOA) correspondent and his translator were detained Friday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa while covering an anti-government protest, the US government-funded broadcaster said.

VOA said reporter Peter Heinlein and interpreter Simegineh Yekoye were arrested while trying to interview members of Ethiopia's Muslim minority who have been protesting alleged government interference in their affairs.

In a statement, VOA said it is "working to gather more information" about his status.

"The safety and welfare of our reporters is our utmost concern," it said.

"We have been in contact (with) State Department officials and will release details as soon as they are available," VOA said.

"We urge Ethiopian authorities to allow Mr. Heinlein to carry out his journalistic responsibilities without interference," it said.

Leslie Lefkow, the deputy Africa director for Human Rights Watch, told AFP that Heinlein and his translator were taken to Maekelawi, the federal investigation center in Addis Ababa, which is where "high-profile or political detainees are often held."

She cited media and other sources.

She said such detentions are part of a crackdown on the media that Human Rights Watch has witnessed over the years where independent journalists have been driven from the country or jailed on terrorism charges.

Foreign journalists have also been held in the past and deported, she said.

Two Swedish journalists were jailed recently, however, for 11 years under anti-terrorism laws for trying to enter the country's conflict-torn east.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) quoted an Ethiopian government spokesman as saying that Heinlein was detained because he was "allegedly using a diplomatic car and refused to show his press identification."

"Peter Heinlein is a veteran reporter with many years' experience in the profession," said CPJ East Africa consultant Tom Rhodes. "We call for the immediate release of Heinlein and Simegnish Yekoye."

"Heinlein has been based in Addis for some years now, and it's very hard to imagine him behaving unethically or unprofessionally," said HRW's Lefkow.

"The obvious conclusion is that the government is simply trying to crack down on coverage of these protests," she added.

"The government should immediately release both Peter and his translator and stop trying to clamp down on the reporting on these protests," Lefkow said.

Despite the fact that Ethiopia and the United States are allies, she said, VOA and the Ethiopian government have had a tense relationship, with Addis Ababa jamming its broadcasts and detaining VOA's Ethiopian journalists.

"This is the conundrum of Ethiopia when you look at the US government position," she said.

In a speech in Accra in 2009, she recalled, US President Barack Obama said Africa needs strong institutions rather than strong men and yet Obama invited Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to the G8 summit earlier this month.

 

Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 26, 2012 at 7:42am

Thousands of people turned out in several cities across Honduras on Friday to protest a wave of journalist killings in the country, where 20 reporters have been murdered in the past three years.

"Killing journalists does not kill the truth," chanted the demonstrators, some of them reporters themselves dressed in yellow and white shirts, as they marched past the offices of the president and the human rights commission.

Organizers said 5,000 people turned out in Tegucigalpa alone. Other marches were held in San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, Comayagua and Choluteca.

"No more impunity," said one sign held by a protester.

Twenty journalists have been killed in Honduras since the overthrow of president Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. None of the murders have been solved.

The body of HRN Radio journalist Alfredo Villatoro Rivera, 47, was found last week wearing an old police uniform, blindfolded with a red scarf and with gunshot wounds to the head, a police spokesman said.

He had been kidnapped the week before.

President Porfirio Lobo, who met with some of the protesters, admitted it was "difficult to have to combat those tasked with the people's security" -- an allusion to police, who are regularly implicated in criminal activity here.

According to UN agencies, Honduras had the world's highest murder rate in 2011, with 86 homicides a year for every 100,000 inhabitants.

Comment by Ms.Dalla Mae Isaac Matlock on May 20, 2012 at 9:07pm

Young journalists in the Republic of Zimbabwe participate in World ..., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Journalism should develop stringent rules, standards 

Friday, 04 May 2012 00:00 

Journalists followed proceedings at the World Press Freedom Day celebrations yesterday

The Chairman of the Zimbabwe Media Commission, Commissioner Godfrey Majonga and other Commissioners here present; the Unesco Representative, Professor Luc Rukingama; representatives of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee
on Media, Information and Communication; the Permanent Secretary for Media, Information and Publicity Cde George Charamba; the Chairman of the Voluntary Media Council Mr Alec Muchadehama; the Chief Executive Officer of the Zimbabwe Media Commission Dr Tafataona Mahoso; all invited guests; ladies and gentlemen; comrades and friends:

I am delighted to be asked to address the 2012 gathering to celebrate World Press Freedom Day at a time when our people have been expecting both a new draft Constitution for Zimbabwe and fresh harmonised elections in the context of our national drive for economic indigenisation and African majority empowerment.

These expectations bring to the fore the question as to how press freedom benefits the people of Zimbabwe. More specifically, how has the exercise and enjoyment of press freedom by the media industry benefited the people and what changes in the national media management system should the people demand from the administration which will emerge out of the next harmonised elections?

While it is up to the sovereign people of Zimbabwe to choose the party or parties which will form the next administration, the recommendations to that new Government as to what changes ought to be made by the next Parliament and Government to the management and enjoyment of press freedom — the nature and quality of such recommendations — will depend largely on the people who are gathered here this morning, my Ministry included.

Searching Questions after a Period of Experimentation 

Mr Chairman, the sovereign people of Zimbabwe in whose ballots lies the power to choose the next Government of Zimbabwe are asking serious questions about the experiments and promises of the last five years, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In that period, Parliament demanded and obtained the right to be more directly involved in the following:

--The constitution making and constitution writing process through Copac;

--The selection and nomination of candidates for appointment to the Zimbabwe Media Commission and the elevation of the same from a statutory to a constitutional authority;

--The selection and nomination of candidates for appointment to the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe;

--The selection and nomination of candidates for appointment to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission;

--The selection and nomination of candidates to the Zimbabwe Human Right Commission; and 

--The selection and nomination of candidates to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission. 

In demanding and obtaining all these powers, Parliament promised more freedom to the people, including media freedom.

Some of your guests, Mr Chairman, may begin to wonder what all these changes have to do with Press freedom or media freedom. 

Let me illustrate:

--Copac had a whole Thematic Committee on Media; so it was expected that an objective report would emerge from that Committee on how the people of Zimbabwe want the Press to be owned and governed in Zimbabwe and whether or not the same people were happy with the changes in media regulation made between 2007 and 2010. For instance, is a constitutional ZMC more effective from the point of view of the people than a statutory Media and Information Commission was before these changes? 

--The new Zimbabwe Media Commission promised both a more diverse and better self-disciplined print media. Has this promise been met and how do we prove that it has or has not been met?

--The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission promised a more enlightening and fairer coverage of the contest among political parties during elections, the assumption being that the citizens of Zimbabwe would make wiser and more enlightened choices of candidates for political office as a result of the ZEC’s regulatory role during elections. Does the people’s experience of the last three years indicate that public officials elected in 2008 have served the nation better than those chosen in previous elections?

--With the UN Human Rights Council’s inclusion of journalists and mass media among so called human rights defenders, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission as a new creation also promised better protection for the rights of ordinary citizens, including protection from gross abuses of individuals and groups by the Press. Has that expectation been borne out by the people’s actual experience?

--The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission as a reformed entity also promised swifter and more thorough investigations of allegations of rampant corruption in all sectors and the media sector as well. Has that promise been fulfilled? How do we verify whatever conclusion we need to make?

In addition, it was also clear that behind the sweeping reforms of 2007-2011, there were promises and claims by media associations and activists to put their own house in order by exercising more and better professional responsibility in relation to the general public and in exchange for the relaxation of direct state controls.

This is to say, the public expected the Zimbabwe Union of Journalist (ZUJ), the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ), the Editor’s Forum, the Media Institute for Southern Africa (Misa), and the Voluntary Media Council (VMC) to take on the responsibility to set and enforce professional standards and to discipline all players in the media industry without Government direction or involvement.

If what I am saying is not clear, let me restate: As we go into fresh harmonised elections, the people of Zimbabwe are saying that World Press Freedom Day should include the freedom of the media industry and the journalism profession to develop and enforce stringent professional rules and standards which protect customers from injury and abuse with little or no Government involvement. If the last five years of change do not show the media industry and the journalism profession to have fulfilled their promises, then the sovereign people of Zimbabwe have no option but to intervene and protect themselves through the instruments of the state, that is to revert to the regulatory regime of 2001-2007. 

Any credible administration emerging out of the imminent 2012 elections is bound to deal with these issues based on voter expectations. Some of those expectations were evident during the Copac outreach but they still have not been published.

If what I am saying is still not clear, let me give you examples of how sectors which take their freedoms and responsibilities seriously have performed recently: If you go to page 4 of The Herald newspaper for Friday, 27 April 2012, you will find a story called “Law Society of Zimbabwe convicts 10 lawyers”. The story opens as follows:

“The Law Society of Zimbabwe Council has this year convicted at least 10 lawyers for offences including abuse of trust funds, tampering with court documents and bringing the profession into disrepute.

“Names of four of the lawyers have since been published. They are among 19 who were not registered to practise (law) this year.

“The Law Society of Zimbabwe will send the papers to the disciplinary tribunal that sits at the High Court. The tribunal will determine, whether the lawyers’ names should be permanently struck off (the register) or they should be spared.”

In other words, we are only at the beginning of the fifth month of the 12-month year and already 10 lawyers have been convicted out of 19 denied registration.

Let me give you another example from two other sectors: The following examples of enforcement are available as illustrations of attempts to enforce compliance: “Business Herald, 16 May 2010, “13 insurance firms face the chop.” “More than 13 short-term insurance companies are set to lose operating licences after they failed to meet the minimum capital requirements as prescribed by the Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC).” 

Business Herald, 30 March 2010, “Nine estate agencies blacklisted.”

“The Estate Agents Council has blacklisted nine estate agencies and ordered them to stop operating forthwith over their failure to comply with regulatory and legal requirements.”

Business Herald, 14 January 2010; “Blitz on unlicenced shops.”

“Business ground to a halt along Kaguvi Street in downtown Harare yesterday as the City of Harare, working with the Zimbabwe Republic Police, closed down unlicenced shops.”

Business Herald, 11 May 2010; “Estate Agents Council vows to bring sanity to property sector.”

“The Estate Agents Council has vowed to forge ahead with the onslaught on errant estate agencies to bring sanity to the property sector amid revelations that the council has so far closed down 20 estate agencies for non-compliance.”

These drastic actions have been taken by self-regulating sectors to protect clients and to protect professions.

Moreover, it is remarkable that Parliament (through Sections 86, 87 and 89 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act) set up a procedure through which editors should publish apologies, provide retractions and afford complainants space for rebuttals of wrong or incorrect stories without any involvement of the state or the ZMC. 

All that is required is for the affected reader to launch a convincing complaint with the media house concerned; and the editor is expected to respond and to comply with the procedure outlined in the Act.

But how many of you have in the last four years seen such apologies, retractions, corrections or rebuttals being readily provided through agreements between editors and their aggrieved readers?

What we have witnessed is a disturbing tendency for the editors to immediately resort to their lawyers to intimidate complainants and force them to give up their complaints. 

What we have observed is the tendency for editors to ask their lawyers to tell the ZMC their reasons why the ZMC should not attempt to stand for aggrieved readers. 

Yet a self-respecting industry and profession really wishing to make a case for professional self-regulation would readily and happily enforce Sections 86, 87 and 89 of the Act without the state or the ZMC having to remind editors or publishers of their obligations to readers.

It is equally remarkable that Section 71, Sub-Section (1) of the same Act allows the ZMC to complain to editors and publishers directly, on its own initiative and in its own name. Yet we have not seen such complaints in the last few years. Does this mean that the Press is working perfectly and the ZMC is perfectly happy with the professional conduct of both journalists and publishers in relation to the public? 

Are the media industry and the journalism profession perfectly happy with their own performance in relation to their clients? Why is there such a conspiracy of silence?

What is at issue is the fact that too many journalists, media associations, media houses and media activists are satisfied with making theoretical arguments for self-discipline, self-regulation and professional responsibility for the purpose only of tying the Government’s hands. They do not investigate even reported cases of alleged corruption and citizen abuse by journalists and editors; and they do not carry out any research to prove or disprove their claims. And they resort to their lawyers too often precisely because they can get away with the abuses because conviction in court is difficult to get and trials take too long and are too costly for most clients.

I can assure you that as we go into fresh harmonised elections this year, the people will be asking questions about the alleged benefits of Press freedom to them and about the demonstrable results of all the reforms introduced in the media sector and in related areas since 2007.

Are the benefits only in terms of increased numbers of publishes and broadcasters? 

Has the quality of public information improved?

The debate over media self-regulation has pretty much run its course and it is now time for reckoning.

For a long time we have been told that South Africa represents the best proof that media self-regulation works best for journalists, media houses and their publics. Yet that is not the case.

What has happened in South Africa is that the ANC has revived a debate which started with publication of the Human Rights Commission of South Africa’s Interim Report of the Inquiry into Racism in the Media published on 21 November 1999. 

That report was abandoned at its interim stage because of a massive backlash from a network of some NGOs, whites who controlled universities and colleges and whites who controlled the media.

The ANC is saying that self-regulation has not worked in South Africa precisely because it is the same white racists who dominated media training, media ownership and journalism in 1999 who have also dominated the charade called media self-regulation to this day. 

The ANC is proposing a Parliamentary Tribunal to try journalists for gross abuses of Press freedom.

In fact, one submission to the 1999 report said whites in academia and the media believed that it is white people who are qualified to regulate the media for the whole country and on behalf of Africans. 

Mr Dimakatso Collin Mashile was reported as alleging that . . . “The Star’s editorial portrays a colonial/imperial assumption that the majority of people with skills to regulate broadcasting are white. He (Mashile) goes further to state that (democratic) regulation of broadcasting in South Africa is a new concept therefore whites cannot claim to have prior skills which Africans would not have in 1999.”

In the United Kingdom, only yesterday, May 1 2012, a Parliamentary Committee of inquiry into the scandals surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s media empire concluded that the owners and management of Murdoch’s News Corp (including Rupert Murdoch and his son James) were unfit to run a national and international mass media service.

Just as the people of the United Kingdom need the intervention of a public inquiry by Parliament to protect them against the criminal and unprofessional conduct of media owners and editors, I can assure you that in the wake of the forthcoming harmonised elections the people of Zimbabwe will be re-examining all the media reforms made in their name since 2007 and demanding firm protections for their rights and their interests.

Conclusion

Max du Preeze wrote about passage of the Protection of Information Bill through the South African Parliament in November 2011. 

He said: “Judged by the bloody-minded mood the ANC was in, we can expect firm moves soon to launch the Media Appeals Tribunal (of Parliament) that would give politicians a say over media. The gloves are now well and truly off.”

I can also predict that if the clearly anti-African and anti-Zimbabwe frenzy we have experienced through some media outlets and platforms in this country continues, and if the conspiracy of silence within the media industry and journalism profession also persists, the gloves may soon be off here as well.

Posted by Pan-African News Wire at 2:33 AM