IT IS generally considered unwise for a politician to debate critically with the media through the media about the media. You don't exactly enjoy home ground advantage.

This has been obvious in recent weeks with the resurfacing of the debate around the ANC's 2007 national conference resolution on an independent media tribunal. There has been a backlash barrage of negative editorial comment directed against the three or four ANC and Alliance comrades who have had the temerity to raise the tribunal proposal again.

Yet beneath the negative barrage some interesting issues have emerged. In the first place, notice how senior journalists are divided on whether to respond positively to ANC general secretary Gwede Mantashe's invitation to have an open and frank discussion on the matter at Luthuli House.

While unhappy with the tribunal proposal, Rapport columnist Jan-Jan Joubert nonetheless criticises a certain "English-language newspaper editor" for not taking up the opportunity of a frank engagement with the ANC.

I assume Joubert is referring to Business Day's Peter Bruce, who in his own weekly column this Monday confirms that he will not be attending the meeting "on principle". Clearly Bruce is only prepared to play when there is home-ground advantage.

But in his previous week's Thick End of the Wedge column Bruce made a number of enlightening admissions. He conceded that the present self-regulatory, print media ombudsman arrangement is inadequate. He also noted that when newspapers were required to publish an apology they often buried it obscurely, in contrast to the original offending story.

Bruce assured us that as editor, at least of Business Day, he would always seek to publish an apology on the same page as the original.

And, indeed, true to his word, this Monday Business Day carried a front-page apology to Minister Siphiwe Nyanda. The paper apologised to Nyanda for a story alleging intended corruption in the suspension of his director-general. The story had been based on a single unnamed source, and the apology conceded that this was "shoddy" journalism. Bruce (or is it the renewed call for a media tribunal?) seems to have triggered a fashion for apologies.

The very next day, The Times carried its own rather half-hearted apology for having run a story on Monday headlined "Jail journalists" - Nzimande. The newspaper conceded that the SACP secretary-general had not said this at our 89th anniversary rally in Rustenburg. But that wasn't the end of the story. While The Times was busying being apologetic on Tuesday, Business Day ran an editorial attacking Nzimande for "getting so excited at the prospect of sending a journalist to jail". Presumably this editorial claim was based on a single source once more - in this case, the erroneous story in The Times!

Stories, especially sensational allegations about prominent personalities, have legs of their own. Saying sorry after the event is just not good enough.

Clearly, we've got a problem. In fact, we've got several media problems. Part of the confusion in the debate around the proposed tribunal is that all of these problems tend to be lumped together.

The tribunal is presented either as a solution to them all, or as a sinister non-solution. It would be wrong to see a tribunal as the solution to all media problems.

For instance, within the ANC-led alliance there is considerable frustration with the fact that much of the print media appears to have adopted a narrowly anti-ANC oppositionist stance.

Remember the orgiastic media froth at the launch of Cope?

Notice how stories about the SACP and Cosatu are all too often anchored around the forlorn but endlessly repeated conviction that we will split from the ANC. These are irritations for us, but they are not the kind of thing that could or should be sorted out in a tribunal.

Related to this oppositionist inclination is the media's view that it is a watchdog over those in power (usually those in political rather than economic power).

The media certainly need to play a watchdog role. However, there are times when watchdog zealotry displaces other roles, like giving accurate information.

But, again, the question of getting this balance right is not really a matter for a tribunal, except where there are spurious and ungrounded allegations masquerading as blowing the whistle.

Another big problem is the ownership of media. Two major corporations dominate the business: the Independent Newspaper group and Media24-Naspers.

One recent attempt to break this monopoly, the Nigerian-financed ThisDay soon became. well, yesterday. It was marginalised not on the basis of its editorial content, but because the two corporations dominate everything from paper supplies to distribution networks. This might be something that the Competition Commission could consider but, again, it is not a matter for the proposed tribunal.

There is another problem with the Independent Group. It is foreign-owned and while its local papers are turning a profit, its foreign papers are in serious trouble. According to many journalists working on so-called "Independent" Newspapers, surplus from SA is being pumped out to prop up failing titles elsewhere. Newsrooms are being squeezed. Experienced journalists are being retrenched and junior journalists are deployed to cover stories for which they are ill-equipped.

While these dynamics are no doubt partly responsible for the grievous inaccuracies that often occur, the question of media ownership as such is not a matter for a tribunal. The democratisation of the media and the fostering of a diversity of voices is a battle to be fought on other terrains.

One thing's for sure, as this week's carnival of apologies demonstrates - self-regulation on its own isn't working.

• This is an edited version of an article that appeared in the SACP's Umsebenzi Online yesterday.