Journalist Stephen Groottes has taken exception to my post in which I lamented the generally low quality of reporting about legal matters and about our judiciary, and in which I compared it unfavourably with the reporting of such matters in the USA. This seems like an important issue for the health of our democracy and for the general well-being of South African citizens, so I thought I’d take a stab at answering his objections.
Writing on the Daily Maverick website, Groottes argues, first, that – unlike in South Africa – the appointment of judges in the USA is a highly politised process. This seems to me, to put it mildly, rather naive. A majority of members on the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) are political appointees and while judges and lawyers play a more influential role in the the appointment of judges in South Africa, few observers of the JSC process would argue that politics play no role in the appointment of judges in South Africa.
The political issues might differ from the hot-button political issues in the USA, but surely they are just as important for those who make decisions about who to nominate to the High Courts or the Constitutional Court than for the members of the Senate who has to confirm the President’s nominees in the USA. Of course, in South Africa the politics behind the process is often obscured to some degree - unlike in the USA - but this is partly because of the difference in reporting on judicial nominations itself.
If our journalists explained the legal and political stakes of a judicial appointment and analysed the judicial philosophies of judges like they did in the USA, we would all be far better informed about the politics (with a small “p”) of the members of one of the three branches of government. Without this information ordinary citizens do not have the information necessary to play their proper role as active citizens in our democracy.
JSC members grill prospective candidates on their membership of secret organisations, on what they have done for transformation, on their views on social and economic rights, and on their relationship with colleagues. Once or twice JSC members have even grilled candidates about their sexual orientation or their religious views – which was rather scandalous and wrong, but which does show that JSC members are very much aware of the politics involved in the appointment of judges. In January 2005 the ANC in its annual statement made the following assertion which puts the point beyond doubt:
We are also confronted by the similarly important challenge to transform the collective mindset of the judiciary to bring it into consonance with the vision and aspirations of the millions who engaged in struggle to liberate our country from white minority domination. The reality can no longer be avoided that many within our judiciary do not see themselves as being part of these masses, accountable to them, and inspired by their hopes, dreams and value systems. If this persists for too long, it will inevitably result in popular antagonism towards the judiciary and our courts, with serious negative consequences for our democratic system as a whole.
We might not like it, but politics do play a role in the appointment (or non-appointment) of judges (as it should). Decisions about whether to appoint Jeremy Gauntlett to the High Court or John Hlophe to the Constitutional Court are made at least partly on the basis of the perceived politics of the candidates. We might couch this in broad phrases about “pro-transformation” or “anti-transformation” candidates, but we all know that we really are talking about the judicial politics of the candidates. The fact that the media does not report on it like that, does not make it less true.
Second, Groottes complains that our legal system is far more closed and that lawyers and most legal academics refuse to speak to the press. This, he says, make it difficult to report on legal and judicial matters in the same way as in the US. It is of course true that the US legal system is more open than our own, but this does not stop the media from doing its own research and analysis.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times provides brilliant coverage of the work of the US Supreme Court and explains to its readers what the trends on the Court are and what certain judgment might mean for the political orientation of that court. He does so by reading all the briefs submitted to the court, then listening to the oral arguments and lastly by studying the judgments and academic law review articles on such judgments – not by phoning one or two academics for a dial-a-quote.
It is therefore far too easy to blame the legal profession for the lack of intelligent and nuanced reporting on the judiciary in South Africa. An intelligent journalist who has the support of his or her editor, is dilligent and hard working and has the ability to packgage complex ideas and issues in an easy to understand way for ordinary consumers of the media will be able to do a far better job than is presently the case with most legal reporting in this country.
Lastly, Groottes argues that a lack of resources hamper reporting on the judiciary. Why would an editor send a journalist to sit in court for a whole day (as the Mail & Guardian did to its credit for the Selebi trial), when that journalist could cover three Julius Malema press conferences in the same period? This, it seems to me, is a valid point. Why would you make a careful study of the work of the judges of the Constitutional Court if you know your editor will give you 300 words to report on a particular case or the appointment of a judge?
Media bosses are often holier than thou about the important role the media play in our democracy, arguing that they fulfil a vital function to keep the public informed and to help create active citizens that are empowered to make proper decisions on who to vote for and what to think and believe. Sadly they often do not do their job properly because they want to make fat profits in the short term. Who cares about educating readers to become more intelligent and informed consumers of news and opinion in the long run if one can make a quick buck?.
Why invest in journalists and more space for editorial content in a newspaper when one can make more money in the short term by allocating ever larger proportions of one’s newspaper to advertising? Why have 10 minute discussions about the judicial philosophies of Constitutional Court judges when one can have half an hour of Solly Philander talking to the “garden boy” about pruning one’s roses, interspersed with many well-placed and lucrative adds for Stodels?
There is one thing that bothers me though. Could the print and electronic media – even with limited resources – not do a better job at informing the public about the work of one of the three branches of government? Surely, despite limited resources, the media is quite good at telling us about the internal workings of the ANC, about whether Julius Malema is stealing our money and about corruption in government. This is because they focus on such stories and thus have made choices about where to focus attention. If they CHOSE to, they could do the same kind of reporting on the judiciary.
I suspect the media do not focus attention on the judiciary at least partly because they think (without ever having asked anyone) that their readers, listeners and viewers are not interested in this. They often assume that we are all stupid, lazy and ignorant and that we really want to listen to Solly every day, that we are only interested in the breast size of Advocate Barbie and, at a push, the sex life of our President.
I wonder whether such assumptions are not based on a kind of pre-democracy mind-set which sees politics (which they report on whether consumers of news are thought to be interested in it or not – perhaps because politics is seen as anti-intellectual and macho) as completely divorced from the law. Perhaps media people – especially editors – fail to understand that the judiciary now make decisions that may have far-reaching political ramifications for all of us. And because the media do not report on the work of the judiciary in this way, ordinary people may not understand how important it is and how it may affect their lives.
But perhaps there is another reason for this sad state of affairs. Maybe it reflects the deeply anti-intellectual strain in our society, a strain pampered and supported by the media. Most South Africans - including most editors and journalists – seem uneasy with nuance and complexity. Most see the world in black and white and reject anything that reeks of intellectualism.
Many years ago on a visit to Calcutta in India I was amazed to spot a long article in The Telegraph about the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The Telegraph, a far superior paper to anything produced in South Africa, is printed every day in a city that probably has far more problems with poverty than anything we are used to and has a middle class of comparable size to Johannesburg. Yet, it produces a newspaper containing superbly written articles on many topics – including some that would never see the light of day in South Africa because they would be viewed as too intellectual or “girly” (thought being seen as not macho enough) by most of the editors of our local rags.
I suppose most South Africans are more interested in blaming apartheid or the ANC government for everything while trying to make obscene amounts of money – preferably without working or by getting others to do the work for them – than actually reading stimulating and complex stories that might challenge their prejudices and hatreds. And editors do not seem to be any different, perhaps because they believe – without evidence – that readers really will not tolerate intelligence and complexity.
Even if the money was coming out of our ears we would probably not produce a newspaper of the quality of The New York Times or the Guardian in London. Goodness, who on earth would actually READ all that stuff, I hear all the media people ask? Who would want to re-think what they already think they know? Nah, let’s just have another beer and see how we can fleece a few more suckers before we emmigrate to Porpoise Spit.
PS: I do not mean to pick on Stephen, who does a better job than most under trying circumstances. My point is a general one which touches more broadly on the state of the media and discourse in South Africa
I think you hit on the answer inadvertently. Those who are interesting remain a small minority in South Africa. Consider for example the per capita stats on education in the Democratic west compared to here. Thus, no sufficient market interest, only lowest common denominator.
I have to agree with you entirely today Prof, I don’t buy newspapers and only scan online papers because of the puerile writing.
The fact that Julius gets so much airtime is because it’s a quick and easy sound bite the young man is beyond boring and thus far has not had anything newsworthy to say, and yet look at the coverage he gets.
What I dont know is, is the media feeding us what we want to read?, or are they assuming this is what we want to read? Its a scary thought either way. If I want unbiased, factual news I rarely look to the media, it comes from blogs such as this or outside the country.
I’ve commented at some length on the piece that sparked this debate, broadly agreeing that our legal journalism fails adequately to reflect the hugely important position of the courts in our institutional architecture, but I am afraid Pierre that this jeremiad really suggests you spend less time talking to editors than I do to lawyers.
My peers across the industry are struggling to deal with constantly shrinking newsrooms, and also shrinking space in their newspapers. They are struggling to find the cash to pay for real journalistic skills, and struggling to find ways to tell an enormously complex story.
Believe me, they are distraught, angry, and depressed about the constraints on their work. They wish they could produce the Guardian or the New York Times, papers with million plus circulations and thousand-strong newsrooms.
To the extent that it is meaningful to talk about “the media” at all, we all wish we were making better newspapers.
Obviously we have to more creative, more clever, more committed, but believe none of us is gleefully planning staff cuts while packing for porpoise spit. We care about the profession perhaps as much as you do about our far-from-perfect justice system.
Nic Dawes says:
May 18, 2010 at 17:41 pm
“My peers across the industry are struggling to deal with constantly shrinking newsrooms, and also shrinking space in their newspapers. They are struggling to find the cash to pay for real journalistic skills, and struggling to find ways to tell an enormously complex story.”
Now that we know the reasons, we have to accept that our media are seriously wanting.
And that South Africans cannot expect fair and balanced reporting!
Maggs I was trying to make a slightly more nuanced point than that … but I’ll log off now and do some reporting.
It is absurd to expect a journalist without a law degree to follow complex litigation. In fact, even many lawyers who do not happen to practice public law find it difficult to understand the intricacies of constitutional cases.
(Is Carmel Rickard the only practicing journalist with a law degree? I think so.)
@ Maggs
“South Africans cannot expect fair and balanced reporting!”
Maggs is right.
The liberal media is biased AND incompetent.
Agreed- I really believe that there are too few intellecutal minds in this counrty to have a challenging paper that will have mass circulation. I wonder if we can blame it on the fact that people have “bigger problems” than worrying about the ins and outs of philosophical issues. Our culture as a people needs to change before the media can change, as I said before it is a business first and foremost.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
May 18, 2010 at 18:21 pm
Hey Big D,
The liberal media are not biased and incompetent.
Just poor, under staffed, under resourced, with shrinking newsrooms and shrinking print space, not too creative, not too clever, not too committed.
Otherwise ja, well, no fine!
Nic Dawes says:
May 18, 2010 at 18:16 pm
“I was trying to make a slightly more nuanced point than that”
Like Pierre bemoaning the state of media while the judicial system is in a mess is like the pot calling the kettle black?
Hey Big Dork,
What do you make of this?
“Jimmy Manyi faces ultimatum
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA May 16 2010 09:44
Labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana has instructed his director general Jimmy Manyi to choose between his job in government and his position as president of the Black Management Forum (BMF) …”
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-05-16-jimmy-manyi-faces-ultimatum
vs
“No ultimatum given to Manyi: Minister
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA May 18 2010 17:11
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana on Tuesday rejected reports that an ultimatum was given to director general Jimmy Manyi to choose between his government job and his Black Management Forum (BMF) presidency position. …”
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-05-18-no-ultimatum-given-to-manyi-minister
oops – my Freudian slip is shownig.
I meant Dwork!
Actually I meant Dork, but intended to write Dwork.
I think we are being to hard on the SA media. City Press and M&G are outstanding, and I say that as a westerner ensconced in the madness of SA for ten years. Should you come back Nic to peruse further comments, allow me. You have a fabulous weekly paper, I never miss it, and even at 21.50 in my wee dorp, I buy it faithfully, even though I visit the internet site at least thrice daily.
Now that must be a tough economic balancing act for M&G.
Media has not only changed with respect to their economics and the internet bleed off, but this new internet media is growing in parallel to the benefit of all. Take Prof’s blog for example. He even has links to Canada’s Constitutional Court. If you haven’t looked around his entire site, then I humbly advise you to do so.
We should thank our lucky stars we have such quality in media, as we do in SA. Lets just hope it continues and grows accordingly. And hopefully, your efforts with this recent blog will produce results Prof. I also note the Independent is improving, whereas earlier it looked likely to lose the plot.
Glad to see my “jeremiad” is eliciting some serious and thoughtful responses. The fourth estate is not always very good at critical self-reflection (judges – Judge Willis are you there? – sometimes suffer from the same malaise), but that does not mean that there are not committed individuals in the media. It is just rather sad that my morning newspaper is filled with “he said, she said” stories and reports about X killing Y. The first step to change this is to recognize the shortcomings and to work a bit harder at smarter, to be a bit more thoughtful and less reactive and, just maybe, to trust readers, listeners and viewers just a little bit more by providing slightly more meaty stories.
The fact that the good prof can talk about 1500 hits a day for his blog tells you that this is perhaps not a country of morons (only)? There’s a whole series of websites and blogs that provide good stuff, in my view – and more vibrant than the newspapers ever were. Newspapers are perhaps just simply dead (or should be dead)?
Seems to me that the market will continue to work. Participation (like responding on a blog) is better than consuming, individual choice works better than the editor’s choices, and on demand is better than on supply timelines. There is simply no competitive advantage for papers, and they hasten their demise with poor journalism, and poor cost structures. C’est la vie, they’re keen to go extinct. Who cares?
Much more important, perhaps, is the mosaic of news sources which is emerging around real consumer choices, bundling in radio (here in Gauteng, old habits die hard – my marketing friends tell me that the moment ‘something big’ happens, 702′s marketshare immediately triples). The SABC, well, the less said the better perhaps. A survey I saw recently showed that “mobile” is now the most trusted medium for information for 16-24 year olds – that generation is already rejecting email addresses, and never got news from radio oer tv. Go figure. So, the fragmentation will continue, and the economics of news will change.
If the economic understanding of news were accurate, this blog wouldn’t exist. Think about it – supply without a price, should be impossible. Yet, there are many like this – and what it is teaching people is that news and insight should be free, participative, immediate and all-the-time. I challenge any contributor to this blog to tell us that they don’t go back to see who’s responded, and how, even if they haven’t ticked the response box. We all want to be part of this – the prof is a (very informative, insightful, and friendly) host, not an oracle.
When the NYTimes started charging for some content, I’m told their audience dwindled to less than 2% of the audience before – and that includes leading intellectual lights like Paul Krugman (luckily, accessible on his blog, including his NYTimes columns….). So, for all their supposedly sophisticated audience, there’s not a great willingness to pay. And their “copies sold” has been declining for years (but now slowly reversing through Kindle, I hear).
So, rather than bemoaning the intellectual poverty of the local newspapers, we should be celebrating the alternatives that are emerging in many nooks and corners of SA. It’s fabulously alive and vibrant, and we should accept that our newspapers, just like anywhere in the world, have a sell-by date. Their heyday was in the mid-80′s, and it’s been downhill since. We need something more in touch with the fragmented audience, in tune with the realities of SA, and available when we want it. The lowest common denominator will continue to be served through the papers, since it doesn’t take that much to put it together. Serious journo’s, such as they are, have left the papers, I suspect. Like mr Groottes?
But to insinuate that South Africans, with their recent history, are not interested in politics – as the explanation for dwindling newspaper turnover, is laughable. There isn’t a country in the world with a more politicised young population. All the dropping revenue proves is that the (dare I say, pale male) newspaper decision makers have it dead-wrong in terms of addressing relevant markets. The fact that the ‘kids’ don’t read the newspapers says something about the newspapers, not the kids, I would venture.
Well said Prof,
The media wonder about their declining ad revenue, and they don’t connect cause with effect…
If you support a goverment that financially endorses the exponential breeding of poverty — then you must not be surprised, when that is the result… exponential growth of poverty!
Hint: Poor people don’t earn enough to buy newspapers! Hint! The more poor people there are to be supported by a declining taxbase, the more those people who used to be able to buy 3 or 4 newspapers, are forced to cut back and purchase one, because their taxes are now supporting an ever larger population explosion of poverty breeding factories!!!
But then again… I been banging this drum for eight years with SA Media.. and for eight years I been given the Middle Finger, by the SA Media…
Now the Constitutional Court will hear be hearing, among others, about the study by Prof. T. Michael Maher, head of Communication from University of Louisiana: How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population – Environment Connection!.
But don’t expect any journalist or newspaper to inform you!
Well said Prof…
The Guardian a good newspaper?! pah! Anything that involves Polly Toynbee is to be treated with suspicion.
One of the most left leaning newspapers London… Perhaps The Times rather…
My pet theory is that journalists are the stupid inbred children of well-off parents. They acquired good language skills via osmosis at the excellent schools they went to and were rescued from mediocrity by the development of spellcheckers.
Editors once were journalists. So too were lecturers in journalism. So, armed with a degree in journalism these clowns then proceed to pass themselves off as oracles.
Once they have that first promotion journalists become hopelessly self-indulgent. A perfect example of lemmingjourno behaviour is that of Kaizer Nyatsumba who once famously told Star readers white South Africans would enrage the African majority if they did not watch Bafana play in the African Cup of Nations final.
Advocacy-journalism comes at a price. Lately, the Star Classified consists of a single broadsheet. Now, there is an example of the pissing away of a brand that trumps even ChickenLicken’s shortsighted decision to scrap the TaxiTwo.
The decline of the media houses is not the result of giving people what they want to read but telling their readers what they ought to want. Pierre’s ‘solution’ is hardly going to find a receptive audience.
Pekkil, that is a suuuuperb contribution. Choice. Twitter Facebook and Google.
Lets debate next how Google has made the legal profession obsolete.
Pierre,
Does Solly really ‘talk’ to his guests? I thought he only shrieked.
so nic,
what you are saying is that the M&G is going to deteriorate even further ?
i hope not, really !
years ago i could not wait until thursday to grab my copy off the newsstand
nowadays i first page through to decide whether it’s worthwhile before i buy
it really pains me to say this, but often it disappoints
the irony though, is that most of it is still pretty decent, just that the sub-par “filler” type articles in between spoils the entire quality experience
(and they are getting more frequent)
some of your gals & guys still do sterling work and i know you’re between a rock and a hard place; understand though that you have in your hands a brand second to none…there has to be a way: differentiate, don’t dumb down
Thank you Prof, first time comment
Thank you for a breath of fresh air, keep up the good work.We will make it in time. Thank GOD we still have free Press at least.(No political independent judiciary though .Please do something about it )
How do u do it with a full time job. It is good we still have some IQ in SA to be able to debate issues & I always look foreward to your posts
.
thanks
mike w
Sarah Palin says:
May 19, 2010 at 1:00 am
“Does Solly really ‘talk’ to his guests? I thought he only shrieked.”
Kinda like 3rd Degree.
I rather like the sound of Debora Patta’s voice.
But not nearly as much as she does!
“Cops clueless how budget spent
2010-05-19 09:38
Lizel Steenkamp, Beeld
Cape Town – The police’s top management were unable to explain to Parliament on Tuesday how R3.2bn was spent to build only 11 new police stations and to make improvements at 12 other stations. …”
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cops-clueless-how-budget-spent-20100518
@ Maggs
Why it took more than four years to reveal this?
It just shows how useless parliament has been in the last 15 yrs. I suspect Selebi is in no position to explain this epecially after he failed to explain his own slips.
@ PdV
Once again, very good posting.
Pierre, it is not simply about skills and resources. It is about how news gets into newspapers. Read Nick Davies Flat Earth News and be surprised. http://www.flatearthnews.net/
Most news gets in via the wires and the promotion industry. If something is not on the wire, it won’t be printed. Even in the quality papers. So journalists don’t even have an incentive to dial-a-quote when they can cut and post/paste a story. Even stories on the wire are seldom checked when they come from a government source.
Gwebecimele says:
May 19, 2010 at 11:30 am
Re Selebi’s slips – “Glen is my friend. Finish and klaar” was not a slip (at the time anyway)
.
It is indeed a move forward for MPs, who were previously brown-nosing, to have started to do what is expected of them, at least by asking hard questions even though they are not getting answers quite frequently.
As a part of the much-maligned – in this forum – media machine in SA I feel compelled to mount a defence of the fourth estate. As Nic pointed out, the problem is relatively simple economics. In an ideal world every publication would have at least two degreed or highly experienced practitioner in every field of human endeavour on the payroll. This isn’t the ideal world. Instead, journalists have to learn about and cover multiple industries by looking for the expertise in others (typically the people they quote). Indeed, I once heard someone describe journalists as “jacks of all trades and masters of none”; as a working journalist that description resonates.
Take Pierre’s current hobby-horse as an example. Michael Osborne mentioned that Carmel Rickard probably the only practising journalist with a law degree in this country. Think about the economics: how much does a practising attorney make in a year and how much would that same person make writing about legal issues? Unless you’re independently wealthy or have other sources of revenue, it simply doesn’t make economic sense.
That said, there is a solution: get involved. If you have expertise in a particular field and you read something in the media that is patently wrong or completely misunderstood, engage the journalist. Most will welcome your comments if they’re constructive.
The Professor and Dawes seem to agree largely on two scores being (a) that the general quality of media commentary on legal affairs is fairly unimpressive and (b) that the lack of quality can, in fairly large measure, be ascribed to the sparse resources that media houses have to deal with. Given Nic’s invitation for intelligent commentary from other sources (which he made in another discussion), the obvious question seems to be: given the import of well-considered commentary on legal matters, which body of people in our society is best-placed to pick up the slack?
The answer is roughly as obvious as the question: the legal academy is best-positioned to do so. Like many other news-readers, I’m aware that various academics do comment by way of blogs or articles submitted to various papers. Apart from the Professor, a few mentionable names are Professors Corder, Devenish and Barnard-Naude. But while I’m certainly happy to commend their intermittent tendencies to social consciousness, perhaps it ought to be said that they might want to get their faculties to organize and even collaborate with media houses with a view to providing more regular commentary.
I’d like to address three considerations: (1) to say a few more words on why professional scholars are in the best positions to help out in the present regard; (2), how they might go about doing so and finally (3), why it doesn’t really serve as a tenable excuse for legal academics to plead over-work as grounds for refusing to make meaningful contributions to societal debate.
As I’m sure we’re all aware, private barristers and attorneys may well want to say some scathing things about, amongst many things, the currently prevalent approach to judicial selection and also general governmental regard for the judiciary. The trouble is that the relatively precarious nature of legal practice precludes them from speaking openly and candidly. Happily, prominent scholars – in the main – do not suffer that concern. Additionally, it is the scholar’s business to keep abreast of developments in his or her area of interest. And given that scholars should be doing some of the work of staying informed anyway, it seems reasonable to expect that it wouldn’t take too much in the way of effort for them to share some of their thoughts with the broader order of society. So with some respect, maybe more scholars that work with areas of law that one could expect much of the news-reading public to find interesting (criminal law, constitutional law on so on) should simply pull their thumbs out.
As to how faculties could go about making meaningful contributions, they could come up with rotation systems whereby bi-monthly contributions could be made to any newspapers willing to play ball. Different faculties could even do that in six monthly shifts. And those same faculties could even invite law students (who are almost bound to be among the most keen, hard-working and able pupils anyway) to submit brief pieces in their own names or anonymously under cover of their respective law faculties.
Finally, I’d just like to mention David Pannick’s name. He pretty much leads the London Bar in public law work but despite his exceptionally busy practice, he makes the time to write nearly bi-monthly for the Times. So the point here is this: if a busy barrister with an international appellate practice can do so, it can’t possibly be unreasonable to ask the experts in various areas of South African law to commit to societal legal education while sharing that responsibility with other lawyers in their respective faculties and even other faculties as well.
The solutions that I’ve offered are hardly the most imaginative and I’m actually counting on people coming up with better ideas. I hope that if some people do that they’d be willing to share because if there’s one brand of person that we could do with in this country, it’s the problem-solver.
@ Maggs
Thanks for exposing this laziness of M&G of just quoting Sunday Indep and later publish an opposing article just to be neutral. If Mdladlana kept quiet we we would all be misled.
I hope Nic Dawes has something to say about that.
Prof, I agreed with your article, until the PS, where you chose to be nice to Stephen Grootes. I do not know Grootes and have never met him, maybe you have thats why you felt the need to blow smoke up his behind.
But in my opinion, it is not an anti-intellectual society that deserves this media. Rather our media is anti-intellectual, and our society support them because the mainstream newspapers (read: highest profits) have the best classified and jobs and sports sections. If a ‘high-brow’ newspaper got advertising support like the mainstream papers have now, then, it would also be able to have good up-to-date sports reporting, etc.
Radio stations like 702, where Stephen plies his trade on the corner, have the opportunity to be intelelctual and nuanced. However, they choose to be simplistic, laced with liberal-conservative sophistry. Similarly for ETV’s international and national news-desks.
Stephen, himself, and many others are the beneficiaries of this profit-driven approach. Ensuring that the ‘doyens’ of media teachers have not really changed in the last twenty (or is it more?) years; the juniorisation of the news and editorial rooms; the lack of reward for reading; and ensuring that progressive has come to mean liberal-conservative, not left wing, not socialist, not even balck nationalist, but liberal-conservative. In other words socially progressive but politically conservative.
The real question, is why should the profit-motivated media be protected by the Constitution, but taxi-drivers or owners’ industry is not directly and specifically protected by the Constitution. That may be the real legal question. Then we will hear the real Nic Dawes and Stephen Grootes expose themselves.
Donovan ranted a bit and then served up this gem:
“The real question, is why should the profit-motivated media be protected by the Constitution, but taxi-drivers or owners’ industry is not directly and specifically protected by the Constitution. That may be the real legal question. Then we will hear the real Nic Dawes and Stephen Grootes expose themselves.”
Nic and Stephen can doubtless speak for themselves. For my part the answer is as simple as the question is misguided: an unprotected media cannot perform its watchdog role in the interests if society and often in the face of extreme political pressure; by contrast, neither taxi drivers nor taxi owners are called on to perform a watchdog role on anything other than their own self-interest.
Point is there is scope and opportunity for young people who combine studies in law and journalism [ and vice versa]. There is so limited and superficial legal reporting, that the sky must be the limit for a suitably qualified journo. We need them!
Re Liptak, see:http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/adam_liptak/index.html
uhhh donovan,
“the media” is not protected by the constitution
it is freedom of speech that is protected; yours, mine, the media’s, the taxi driver’s and so forth
maybe read the constitution ?
After media stories about Population explosion, Food shortage and Global warming. Here is an interrsting read.
In fact, Brown is dead right with his extrapolations, but so was the man who (probably apocryphally) predicted that the streets of London would be buried under 10ft of horse manure by 1950. So was IBM’s founder Thomas Watson when he said in 1943 that there was a world market for just five computers and Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, when he said in 1977: “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Both remarks were true enough when computers weighed a ton and cost a fortune.
However, these eminently sensible people were right only at that precise moment in time. Even Lester Brown will not always be right. Why? Because now that we know about the looming paper shortage, we will ensure that by 2030 paper is used more frugally or replaced by something else. What is the alternative — halting the Chinese economy?
The question is not “Can we go on as we are?” — because the answer is “No” — but how best can we encourage the changes that will enable the Chinese, Indians and Africans to live as prosperously as Americans and Britons do today?
Many of today’s extreme environmentalists insist the world has reached a “turning point” — quite unaware that their predecessors have been making the same claim for 200 years. They also maintain that the only sustainable solution is to retreat — to halt economic growth and enter progressive economic recession.
This means not just that increasing your company’s sales would be a crime, but that the failure to shrink them would be, too. Not only would inventing a new gadget be illegal, but so would failing to abandon existing technologies. Growing more food per acre would become a felony, as would failing to grow less.
Here’s the rub: this future sounds awfully like the feudal past. The Ming and Maoist emperors of China had rules that restricted the growth of businesses, punished innovation and limited the size of families. That, I fear, is the world the pessimists conjure up when they speak of retreat.
As I write, it is nine in the morning. In the two hours since getting up, I have showered in water heated by North Sea gas, shaved using an American razor running on electricity made from British coal, eaten bread made from French wheat and spread with New Zealand butter, brewed tea using leaves grown in Sri Lanka, dressed in clothes of Indian cotton and Australian wool and read a newspaper made from Finnish wood pulp. I have consumed goods and services from dozens of countries.
More to the point, I have also consumed minuscule fractions of the productive labour of many dozens of people. They were all, unknowingly, working for me. In exchange for some fraction of my spending, each supplied me with some fraction of their work. They gave me what I wanted when I wanted it — as if I were the Roi Soleil, Louis XIV, at Versailles in 1700.
Here is the link
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article7127536.ece
It would help us enormously to become more thoughtful and reflective about our own performance if we had more thoughtful, reflective critics who understood the functioning of news media, and are able in an informed way to pick apart its failings (and successes).
I do think that bloggers, for example, can perform an important role by watching very closely what we do, and calling us on our errors and blind spots.
Disappointment and anger are fair enough, but they can be much more productively put to use if they are informed by rigorous, evidence-based analysis.
I believe the phrase is “bring it on”.
@ Donovan
Fully agree on Grootes, eTV and 702.
They can all learn something from Noseweek, best unbiased investigative journalism.
Unlike M&G, in Noseweek, Politicians, Banks, White Executives, Big Business, Hospital Groups, Lawyers etc all have equal chances of being in the headlines.
Hi Nic, with the deepest respect, they’ve brought it on already, and are bringing it on, every day – when they choose not to read a newspaper. The problem, perhaps, is that the light won’t come from those ‘thoughtful, reflective critics who understand the functioning of the news media’, but instead will come from people who chose to ignore what you have to offer.
This is not going to be solved by the same people who’ve gotten this wrong for what, a decade, talking to themselves some more since they ‘understand the functioning of the newsmedia’, but it’s going to be solved by people in the news media who take the time to understand how media is being consumed, when, at what price and why – and than work their way back to designing the media this century deserves. Smearing ink on dead trees, as someone once called printing, won’t be solved by better smearing. Not in the era of mobile, of now, of when-i-want it, of facebook and twittr.
You want “rigorous, evidence-based analysis”? It’s under your nose. Start looking at the actual spending in the market, and start looking at how and when news is acquired, digested, distributed and ignored, and by who and at what price. What more evidence would you need?
nic,
it starts with the basics: sub-editing
look at your online edition of today
i just happen to be looking at the item on expected WC spectators
look at the 2% figure, how does that make sense ?!
should be about 5%
rest of the copy is also a bit dodgy (thank you honourable v schalkwyk)
and i see this stuff daily (and weekly in your print edition)
now i understand; this was a copy and paste job from the wires;
a “filler”….regurgitated to make your edition look “fatter”
but do your guys read the stuff at least before they press cntrl v ??
just rather don’t do it…it affects your credibility
i know this is a silly (and perhaps pedantic) example
but stay out of the news24 race; it’s not your space
yes, the topic is relevant, but at least check the copy
add one or two insightful paragraphs…presto…journalism
more and more of this rubbish is making it through to your print edition; that’s the real problem
concentrate on quality, not quantity; you will never be everything to everybody; concentrate your efforts on what you used to be excellent at…if your advertisers do not understand this, you need to find others….seriously ! (otherwise your publication will be mediocre in 5 years from now)
and nic, don’t tell me that you’re not aware of this
(stop being so defensive, we’re trying to help…we: your readers)
Thanks, Gwebecimele, I also am a big fan of Noseweek, without a doubt the best honest, no underhanded agenda, and the ONLY investigative journalism we have in South Africa.
For those who wish to believe that the freedom of expression clause has not been overwhelmingly exploited by a profit-driven media (read: business), you go ahead. You most probably don’t see it because you agree with the media with their liberal-conservative mumbo-jumbo claptrap.
That is why you won’t want to discuss the falling standards in both lecture halls and newsrooms. The control and dominance of the finance manager, representing the shareholders and directors from the editor, on what gets publiched or aired and what does not? Is that so hard to believe or is it easier to believe that Luthuli House can decide what news gets aired on SABC?
Nic Dawes says:
May 19, 2010 at 14:59 pm
“Disappointment and anger are fair enough, but they can be much more productively put to use if they are informed by rigorous, evidence-based analysis”.
Disappointment maybe; anger is overkill.
Re analysis – there’s two articles in the MG on Jimmy Manyi/ultimatum for example.
One is wrong, so worthless – 50% wasted space.
The other is heavily “padded” – another 30% wasted space.
There would have been at least 65% more space and resources (relative to the size of the article) available to a under resourced newspaper if someone did their job properly.
Maybe the World Cup will do us all good after all…. http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article456678.ece/No-gevaar-in-Soweto–liefling
Leigh says:
May 19, 2010 at 13:19 pm
There’s a nifty suggestion – to get expert views, ask the experts!
Well said Leigh.
This started with Pierre comparing the media attention in the US on the appointment of Elena Kagan as the next justice of the United States Supreme Court and the kind of media attention her at home.
We’ve been given all kinds of reasons why it’s so very difficult here to get the information and to publish it.
Guess what?
A whole lot is available for example on our Chief Justice, for free at that – http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicesandilengcobo/index1.html.
If I may misquote Skipper the Penguin – Just cut and paste, boys. Cut and paste.
Agreed, pressures on the media are significant and generally poorly understood by people outside the industry. Which has mostly to do with the economics of journalism – or perceptions about the economics of journalism. Yes, newspapers are losing specialist writers (when they are not promoting them out of writing jobs). Budgets are shrinking, etc, etc.
Still, one journalist friend tells me how disappointed he is with his colleagues who sit and do telephone journalism all day. It is not that they can’t go out and meet their contacts (which is how you get somewhere), it is just that they don’t. This is only one example of a cultural change in journalism, of how it is increasingly being seen as just a job (Flat Earth News and all that). And you can’t have great journalism without actually caring about getting it right and doing the story justice. Fewer journalists care about good journalism… and certainly fewer media houses. That is a huge part of the problem.
I do however know some people in journalism who do care – and there will always be people like that – but most of them feel like they are in the minority. We wouldn’t have a paper as good as the MG if some people at least didn’t care. The problem is that the market is conspiring to squeeze all of this goodness out and leave the media as a dry dead thing with nothing but ads, advertorials and wire stories.
Whereas I’m certainly willing to pay for well-written, well-informed writing on politics, the judiciary, health, environment etc. my need for this kind of publication will remain largely unmet I also can’t be certain that there are enough other people who would be willing to pay for this kind of thing. But then, with the exception of MG at times, no one has really tried.
Either way, the days of print, and more importantly large commercial media houses, are going. People like the Prof, Zackie Achmat, and many other experts across the world are publishing their own writing online for free. I think this will take us part of the way. The other thing that will move us forward will be better/less commercial funding models, like what we’re seeing with the Texas Tribune and some others, and finally, when we wake up to the fact that media in its full fourth estate role is a public good, public funding (obviously with many strings attached and some clever mechanisms to ensure independence)
Isn’t it nice that we have a Peter Delmar to act as a facilitator in the understanding of our own reality? Whatever would we do without them?
You know, as a society we do not place a high enough premium on our Enlightened One’s.
I enjoyed this post immensely, right up to the second last paragraph where you mentioned the New York Times and The Guardian. Eh, intellectual and balanced discussions se voet.
Nic Dawes says: May 19, 2010 at 14:59 pm
“It would help us enormously to become more thoughtful and reflective about our own performance if we had more thoughtful, reflective critics who understood the functioning of news media, and are able in an informed way to pick apart its failings (and successes). I do think that bloggers, for example, can perform an important role by watching very closely what we do, and calling us on our errors and blind spots. Disappointment and anger are fair enough, but they can be much more productively put to use if they are informed by rigorous, evidence-based analysis.
I believe the phrase is “bring it on”.”
Let’s see: last night I watched the 19h00 news on eTV and it was reported that ET’ alleged murderer failed in his attempt to be tried on a LESSER CHARGE OF SELF DEFENCE and the Court REJECTED HIS CLAIM OF SELF DEFENCE.
Now this is clearly wrong. Firstly, self defence is not a charge (less or otherwise), it is a DEFENCE. Secondly, a Court cannot REJECT anyone’s defence at a bail hearing.
It is this kind of reporting that should not be tolerated. A big plus to SABC because in their 19h30 bulletin on SABC1 they got it right. I suppose it would not have been sensational enough for eTV to report on the correct facts and not mislead the SA public!!
The issue of the personal hygiene of the nursing staff at the renamed hospital where 6 babies died has been raised under Pierre’s road rage rant.
This happens regularly nowadays at our state hospitals. Babies die as a result of the ignorance of the people in whose care they are. What does the state do about it?
Not only babies die unnecessarily in our state hospitals. Have we seen even one nurse charged with culpable homicide when a patient dies who need not?
How does the media react to these outrages?
Politically correct, that’s how!
Think of the deterrent effect and the lives saved if one newspaper started a debate with perhaps the opinion of a criminal law specialist whether nurses should be charged with culpable homicide when their patients die because of their gross negligence!
@ Nic Dawes
Hopefully soon you will find the correct culprit who leaked the Zuma tapes. You started with Fraser, followed by Selebi and now Mphegi.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-05-21-top-cop-scuttled-zuma-case
nic,
you say:
“Obviously we have to be more creative, more clever, more committed…”
you mean like today’s zapiro cartoon ?
yes, that should sell a couple of newspapers
nic,
my unqualified apologies; it appeared the cartoon was a cheap and isolated publicity stunt
i did not realise that it was published within the wider context of the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”
so again, my apologies