Regulation of the media
By Priya Reddy
Introduction
An independent press is one that exists outside of political, governmental or commercial control. It is robust and allows for the free dissemination of information without government, business or other interference or influence.
“Early definitions of press freedom focused on the absence of government restrictions. Later definitions noted that press freedom should not only include the absence of controls () but rather should consider factors that allow the news media to thrive.” – (Becker et al., 2007: p6)
It is widely accepted that in countries where the media functions independently, democracies flourish, corruption is minimized, and accountability is improved. Amartya Sen famously asserted that countries with a free press do not suffer from famines because in these environments, governments are held to account (Sen, 1991: p23).
However, in many parts of the world, press freedom is at risk. According to a study conducted by UNESCO and published in 2021 “around 85% of people live in countries where (press freedom) has declined over the past five years, the worst score since 1984” (The Economist, 2022).
Global Press Freedom is under threat, in part, due to the ever-growing problem of disinformation, which spreads at high speed to large audiences on social media and other platforms. With citizens having difficulty differentiating what is accurate and what is disinformation, public trust in news sources is negatively affected. Well-researched, credible pieces of journalism are attacked and dismissed by self-proclaimed experts with large and often easily-led audiences but a click away.
A number of new laws have been passed around the world ostensibly to limit the spread of misinformation. A recent study showed that in a sample of 11 countries around Africa, the number of laws against “false information” almost doubled from 17 to 31 from 2016 to 2020. These laws, according to the study, did not work to their desired effect.
“We found that while these laws have a chilling effect on political and media debate, they do not reduce misinformation harm. This matters as the laws curtail public debate, yet fail to curb the harmful effects of misinformation” (Cunliffe-Jones et al., 2021).
Reporters Without Borders, which provides a watchdog role, reports that globally last year, 488 journalists were behind bars with many more subjected to intimidation. This is the highest number since they began reporting this figure 25 years ago (France24, 2021). Also, many governments around the world fund media in exchange for favourable coverage, thus silencing media that might be critical of the government. (Dragomir, 2017).
“Another common trick is for regimes to nudge friendly plutocrats, who often depend on official patronage for their fortunes, to buy up independent media and neuter them” (The Economist, 2022).
This paper will look at media regulation in South Africa and the United Kingdom and its implications for press freedom.
Media regulation in South Africa (SA)
Up until 2012, democratic South Africa’s media was self-regulated. At that time, a review was conducted by the Press Freedom Commission, which resulted in co-regulation with the Press Council of South Africa. SA is fortunate to have amongst the freest press on the continent. Section 16 of the Constitution protects and guarantees freedom of expression to all citizens.
“Though print media ownership is highly concentrated, a range of private and independent print outlets provide some diversity of views. The broadcast sector is dominated by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), which operates a network of radio stations through which most South Africans receive their news, as well as three television stations that claim most of the television market” (Wasserman, 2020: p.454).
Despite this plurality of voices, the Protection of State Information Bill went before Parliament in 2010. This was widely believed by media rights organisations like Right 2 Know, and others committed to freedom of the press to reflect a government that wished to restrict access to information. The proposed bill would “grant broad power to government officials to classify information if doing so is in the national interest” (Sindane, 2018: p.157). While media houses largely accepted that some government information should remain out of the public realm, there was strong objection to the nebulousness of the term “national interest”. Of major concern was the provision for jail sentences of up to 25 years if found guilty, with no public interest defense. In 2011 after much public pressure, the administration agreed to revise the bill, including the removal of the concept of “national interest,” and replace it with clearly defined national security concerns.
While this was largely the desired outcome for defenders of press freedom (Smith, 2013), there is still cause for concern due to other factors. For instance, for many media owners, lack of revenue is the most threatening risk to press freedom. “It impacts on so many things, including journalism ethics, independence of the media, and the wellbeing of journalists”, according to Kate Skinner, an independent media researcher (Germiston City News, 2021). Mobara (Germiston City News, 2021) the executive director of the Press Council of South Africa agrees, saying that the digital disruption has impacted hugely on the media industry, with the closures of several magazines and newspapers and the migration of print media towards digital platforms, and often behind paywalls”. With much corporate advertising spend now going to digital platforms, the running of traditional media houses, in many instances, is unsustainable.
Threats and violence towards journalists is also a factor that compromises press freedom. In recent years, there have been a number of attacks of journalists. During the Covid 19 pandemic, community journalist Paul Nthoba was “harassed, assaulted, and detained after photographing police officers enforcing lockdown measures in the Free State” (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2020). A number of journalists and photographers have been robbed and assaulted when covering stories in high crime areas of SA. Female journalists are particularly vulnerable to attacks from the public. In May 2010, the ruling party’s Youth League spokesperson, Floyd Shivambu, sent the below text message to highly respected journalist, Carien Du Plessis:
“You must learn to respect people. I don’t comment on ANCYL issues and please stop being stupid… I wouldn’t want to earn respect from white bitches… so dream on” (Saville, 2012).
Du Plessis brought hate speech charges against Shivambu who was later forced to publically apologise to her.
According to a report by journalist Pontsho Pilane, “dealing with harassment is part of the job” for women journalists. Pilane explains that she has to be accompanied by a male colleague to perform her duties. If alone, she is often insulted, objectified, groped and threatened” (Bird & Singh, 2021).
In September 2020, journalist Nobesuthu Hejana reported that she was pushed and shoved by members of the Economic Freedom Fighters. Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, a senior member of the party tweeted about the incident: “I really do not see harassment here. Merely touching her is not harassment. The touch has to be violent, invasive, or harmful to become harassment” (Mbhele, 2020).
This tweet points to a deep lack of gender sensitivity, even amongst senior member of political parties. This is particularly egregious in a country where incidents of gender-based violence is uncommonly high.
In SA, press freedom also comes under threat due to the so-called ‘juniorisation’ of newsrooms. As far back as 2010, journalist Desi Tzoneva noted that the once high standards of journalism were slowly disintegrating in South Africa.
“In the areas of writing and accuracy skills: story organisation; factually-reported events; tightly-written copy; clear sentences; grammatical errors; spelling mistakes; as well as punctuation appear to be large impediments to the grammatical aspect of news. It is not only the process of story compilation that has been a hurdle, however. Content has also suffered. South African media had failed (for instance) Zimbabwe because of inexperienced reporters who could not properly analyse the nuances of the political situation” (Tzoneva, 2010).
In South Africa then, laws and regulations do provide support for press freedom. But there are still a number of pressures that negatively impact on this support being put into practice.
Media regulation in the United Kingdom (UK)
The regulator of broadcast media in the United Kingdom has since 2003 been a state-appointed body, the Office of Communications (Ofcom). On its website (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/home), Ofcom says that it “regulates the TV, radio and video demand sector”. Ofcom’s role is to provide the rules to which journalists must adhere. These include matters of ethical reporting, impartiality and accuracy. It also protects consumers from violence, pornography, religious intolerance and any content that might incite crime. According to Adam Baxter (personal communication, 2022), Ofcom will soon be legislated to regulate the internet as well.
Print journalism in the UK is regulated by a body called the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which effectively answers to the major media owners. The print media in the UK has a concentrated ownership. This can compromise true media freedom as those who control the purse strings can dictate the news depending on their own agenda. According to an Open Democracy report in 2019, just six billionaires own the majority of voting shares in most national newspapers.
“True editorial independence often doesn’t exist in these papers. The owners can – and do – interfere with what is published in their publications, which editors and journalists are promoted or fired as well as which political parties the paper supports” (Jones, 2019).
With such widely read newspapers owned by so few, mostly Conservative Party-supporting white men, the media agenda can be set to advance specific narratives.
As in South Africa and elsewhere, media freedom in the UK has also come under threat due to corporate advertising in newspapers. The reliance on this revenue stream has implications for how the newspaper reports, generally steering away from stories that might negatively affect the company amidst concerns that funding be withdrawn.
The UK ranks 33rd on the 2021 World Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders. It can be found in the yellow category. This indicates that press freedom in the UK is ‘satisfactory’ but not ‘good’ (Tobitt, 2021).The organisation cites “tougher press regulation, the government’s campaign to limit encryption on services such as WhatsApp, and restrictions by Labour and the Conservatives on journalists’ access to politicians during the 2017 general election” (Waterson, 2018) as reasons why the UK has not performed better on the index.
In 2017, then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced an injection of £1 million to boost global press freedom. The money was promised to projects that helped journalists build support networks, build their capacity to protect press freedom and lobby governments to relax regulations (Ponsford, 2017).
At the time, he said:
“Freedom of expression is a universal human right and a free press underpins that right. As a former journalist I am alarmed that worldwide attacks on journalists are rife and increasing. Civil society is all about free people. Where governments fear freedom of expression they often try to shut down media and civil society, or clip their wings. This both violates human rights and crushes creativity. A free media is vital to creating a vibrant, informed and engaged population and helps to support a safer, more prosperous and progressive world” (UK Government press release, 2017).
Fast forward five years and Prime Minister Johnson’s government has, according to Open Democracy, an “appalling record” (Corderoy, 2021) when it comes to matters of press freedom. Attacks by Ministers on journalists, making false claims against media houses, cherry picking which journalists are allowed to ask questions and even the arrest of a journalist seems to indicate that the Prime Minister is not as amenable to the promotion of press freedom as he was five years ago.
As in South Africa, the Covid 19 pandemic had a negative impact on press freedom. Freedom of Information requests were often ignored (Harrison & Torsner, 2021) and much of government business and decision-making took place without the necessary press scrutiny. Reporters Without Borders have accused Johnson’s government of a “vindictive” response to media criticism of its handling of the pandemic (Fitzgerald, 2021).
The most recent concern for those committed to media freedom in the UK is the Online Safety Bill which the government claims is being introduced in order to show “global leadership with groundbreaking laws to usher in a new age of accountability for tech and bring fairness and accountability to the online world” (UK Government press release, 2021). Critics of the bill argue that it will result in state censorship, give unfair protection to traditional media and give ministers the authority to decide what constitutes harm (Higson-Bliss, 2022).
The UK will need to adopt a number of measures to ensure that its press is truly free and independent and that it speaks with a plurality of voices that represent the diversity of views and people living in the UK
Conclusion
We have seen that press freedom is under threat in many parts of the world, even those operating according to democratic principles. Press freedom is one of the bedrocks of democracy. The right to access information and to get a range of viewpoints is fundamental for a well-functioning society. And it must be carefully guarded and protected when necessary as it is perhaps the most effective way to hold our leaders to account.
Infringements on press freedom do not always manifest in obvious and expected ways. The jailing of journalists, threats to their lives and laws to silence the media still happens in many parts of the world. But in democratic countries like South Africa and the United Kingdom, legal protections for both access to information and media freedom remain largely in place, and are supported by both the judiciary and public opinion. In this circumstance, the threat is arguably more insidious.
“The media systems that regularly reach mass audiences operate as a collaboration between profit-seeking institutions and state and parastatal institutions. These collaborations () deliver accounts of the social that reflect the various interests and concerns of the participants. Facts that aren’t useful to those who wield power are sometimes suppressed outright but they are mostly just finessed away” (Hind, 2021).
When the media system is compromised, it is ordinary citizens that are worst affected. At a World Press Freedom Day meeting of the South African National Editors Forum, Times Live editor, Makhuda Sefara noted that it “must be acknowledged that there are those who do not want an independent probing investigative media and do not want to help our democracy to grow” (Breitenbach, 2022).
The media cannot protect its freedom on its own. It needs the help and support of the judicial system as well as ordinary citizens. In order to rally citizens, it is imperative that senior media practitioners educate the public about the role of the media, the importance of this institution in speaking truth to power and in representing the interests of the public at large. Citizens must understand the work that goes into writing accurate articles so that they turn first to credible media sources for news and not their neighbourhood conspiracy theorist on Facebook. This is a challenging task but with regular community engagements, with talking directly to young people and allowing citizens’ voices to be heard, a closer and more trusted relationship between the press and public it serves can be forged.
Media houses must rally together and show solidarity when journalists are harassed, jailed and unfairly treated. There is indeed power in numbers and competing interests must be put aside to protect those in the media fraternity.
At the same time, the media must hold those journalists and media houses that behave in unethical ways to account. This cannot be done without any regulation or by the media solely regulating themselves. Panels of interested parties and ordinary citizens should be formed to hold the media to account. And they must be given the necessary powers to ensure that there is necessary punitive action in instances of unethical behaviour. These instances should be widely reported to build trust in media institutions as one where there is a genuine commitment to accountability.
In order to avoid the ownership of news organisations by big business, many independently run media houses are working off a crowdfunding model. In this way, readers fund the organisation themselves allowing news that is without fear or favour towards media owners. These crowdfunded organisations are known for journalism that is braver and more investigative in nature. Well-regarded publications like the Guardian in the UK and the Daily Maverick in SA work relatively successfully and sustainably off this model.
Finally, to improve press freedom, more partnerships need to be formed with grassroots and community media outlets that speak with and to the community directly and that have intimate knowledge of what matters most to specific communities.
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