The Hypocrisy of the Fourth Estate

It has been a bemusing couple of days watching the brouhaha around the SABC unfold. Not that the matter is not worthy of critical consideration but rather because it exposes the underlying and not so invisible hypocrisy of the fourth estate.  Media houses of all hews have been scathing in their criticism of the SABC and how it attempts to manipulate the news in order to further its own agenda while conveniently ignoring the massive log in its own eye.

Others have written recently to point out this shortcoming and Jane Duncan was most succinct in her description of the media distortions that emanate from the media`s “love affair with riot porn”.

Quoting media scholar Todd Gitlin, Professor Duncan points out that “the media were not simply reflecting the realities of political activism…[r]ather, they were constructing activists as unruly subjects, which systematically undermined activists’ struggles. By doing so, media organisations played an important ideological role, legitimating certain social actors (usually official ones) as being inherently reasonable, while demonising the protestors as teetering dangerously on the lunatic fringe.”

Take as an example the manner in which the media covered what many in Civil Society has described as an historic national gathering of mining affected communities which took place on the anniversary of the Freedom Charter this past Sunday.

Mining affected communities have been involved in an ongoing struggle for justice which has often resulted in violent clashes with police and mine security, activists have been arrested, buildings destroyed and lives have been lost. The media has intermittently covered the outbreaks of violence and has consistently ignored any peaceful protests and other peaceful means used by communities to engage the state or mining companies. In general mining affected communities have been excluded not only from the legislative and policy domain by official state actors but have also been marginalised by the media in its coverage of their ongoing struggle for justice.

So when communities who have been organising and working for over three years to consolidate a shared vision for their inclusion into the official legislative and policy domain gathered on the anniversary of the Freedom Charter to adopt their own Peoples Mining Charter as a means to indicate to the state that they are legitimate stakeholders in the mining debate, it was expected that the media would provide it with the coverage that every marginalised community deserves.

Instead no media houses covered the event and only ENCA attended to record an unrelated soundbite of Zelinzima Vavi. The eventual report by a seasoned journalist of ENCA made no mention of the struggle for justice of mining affected communities and the actual reason Vavi was speaking in the first place.

This blanket denial of voice by all the Media houses, to the marginalised communities affected by mining, is the reason why I am unable to share their apparent concern about the happenings at the SABC, when they themselves are guilty of ignoring the injustices perpetrated against marginalised communities. They are indeed responsible for a great deal of the frustrations which erupt into violence when the voices of marginalised communities are ignored and suppressed.

How does any media house ignore the adoption of the Peoples Mining Charter when across the board, leaders such as Bishop Joe Seoka, Bishop Paul Verryn, Zwelinzima Vavi and Jospeh Matujwa among a host of others, have all expressed not only their support but confirmed the significance of the historical gathering? Messages of support from organisations across South Africa and indeed from across the world have all expressed similar sentiments, yet our media, in their wisdom and arrogance have contrived to silence and deny an historic moment even as it unfolded before their eyes.

So here is an example of the media`s complicity in the current state of rising violence and their absolute imperviousness to any criticism of their bias. The smoke that calls, in reference to Karl von Holdts research report in which he outlines how communities resort to violence in a desperate attempt to draw the attention of officialdom, is not only a result of officialdom’s unwillingness to listen, it is also as a result of the Fourth Estates own biases against the interests and voices of the marginalised.  The media would do well to see the log in their own eye before they go picketing in front of the SABC. No doubt their protest will be on the front page of every Newspaper. Hypocritical much?

"Smuggle out the truth, pass it through all the obstacles that its enemies fabricate; multiply, spread by all means possible her message so that she may triumph; through zeal and civic action counterbalance the influence of money and the machinations lavished on the propogation of deception. That , in my opinion, is the most useful activity and the most sacred duty of pure patriotism." Maximilien Robespierre