State role in media 'is a threat'
PUBLIC Protector Thuli Madonsela has blasted holes in the ANC's proposal for a media appeals tribunal, saying any form of state interference in the media would be a threat to the free flow of information.
PRESS FREEDOM: Public Protector Thuli Madonsela recommends that the Press Ombudsman office be strengthened. PHOTO: VATHISWA RUSELO
Madonsela said reviewing the Press Code and strengthening the Press Ombudsman's office was the best way to address the weaknesses and challenges faced by the media.
This comes after the ANC's top brass - Jesse Duarte, Gwede Mantashe and Jackson Mthembu - showered her office with praise on Tuesday when they pushed for an independent watchdog to regulate the print media to be established and for Parliament to play an oversight role over that body.
On Tuesday the ANC made reference to Madonsela's office, the auditor-general and the Independent Electoral Commission as good examples of successful independent watchdogs that report to Parliament.
Speaking at the Press Freedom Commission in Johannesburg yesterday, Madonsela said parliamentary oversight was tantamount to state interference and that the Press Ombudsman's office should be strengthened.
"Unfortunately I think it would be a problem to have oversight by Parliament," she said.
"As I said in the first place, Parliament is a structure that I have the utmost respect for. Parliament is a structure of politicians."
Madonsela said there were already other mechanisms that Parliament had indirectly put in place to regulate the media, in the form of laws that protect society from media abuse.
She said the Press Ombudsman should continue to be funded by the print media but be independent from the Press Council, which she said looked after the interests of its members, who were the print media.
"We have suggested that the Namibian Press Ombudsman model is one place to start," Madonsela said.
"Basically we are talking about a structure with its own identity, issues its own annual report and that [its office] is not in the same premises with the press.
"Just like, for example, the public protector, South Africa operates totally independent of the state," she said.
"It is funded by the state, it was created by the state, it is accountable financially to the state, and administratively, but in terms of how it presides [over cases] and its identity, it has nothing to do with government.
"And that is what we are proposing today," Madonsela said.
Most of the presentations yesterday, including civil society group Section 16, recommended self-regulation be strengthened.
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We must keep this greedy governments hands off the press. We must know what money they are stealing off us. Without newspapers we will know nothing while our money is siphoned off to swiss bank accounts by ANC big wigs. People power!Report Abuse