Independent Media wants Google bucks without Press Council oversight

Just weeks after the Competition Commission finalised South Africa’s first attempt to claw back value from Big Tech, an appeal has already been launched against its findings.

The Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry (MDPMI) report was three years in the making, a sprawling attempt to rebalance the economics of digital news after a decade in which Google and Meta siphoned audiences and advertising from collapsing local newsrooms. Its remedies, as the commission stressed, were carefully calibrated for a small market operating under the glare of geopolitical pressure: hardly the kind of context in which shaking up the Big Tech monoliths is easy

Yet even those modest suggested reforms have now provoked a challenge — not over whether Big Tech should be paying up, but over who is allowed to receive a slice of the pie.

At issue is one of the report’s few concrete financial wins for local journalism: Google’s commitment to contribute R688-million to South African news publishers over five years. The commission recommended that only outlets adhering to recognised ethical oversight — specifically, members of either the Press Council of South Africa or the Broadcasting Complaints Commission — should automatically qualify for these benefits.

Independent Media is not among them. And, as a result, it wants the rules changed.

Read more: Media and digital platforms report — Pragmatic, but there’s unfinished business

A different kind of ‘self-regulation’

At the heart of the dispute is a debate that has simmered in South African news media for years: what counts as legitimate regulation?

“South Africa news media is self-regulated,” stated Independent Media’s non-executive director, Lucien Jacobs, in his affidavit to the commission.

“This self-regulation is achieved in various ways. Some media houses voluntarily join the Press Council, while others use [an] internal self-regulation system.”

Independent falls into the latter category, having created its own in-house complaints mechanism: the Independent Media Ombudsman, also referred to as the Office of the Public Editor or Group Ombud. This approach, Jacobs claims, follows the “Guardian UK model of internal self-regulation”.

Independent Media repeatedly compares itself to The Guardian throughout Jacobs’ affidavit, arguing that if The Guardian was entitled to Google money in Australia after a similar process, so too is Independent.

Yet the comparison is flawed. The Guardian’s decision to opt for self-regulation came out of a very particular media and political landscape, where the industry bodies were patently failing to stem ethical lapses, and government influence was a real concern. In fact, The Guardian’s decision was guided strongly by the assessment that the industry oversight was too weak and lacked proper consequences. The Guardian still submits to transparent, independent oversight.

Independent’s framework, by contrast, has produced very little in the way of visible accountability. Its own ombuds office lists no rulings whatsoever for 2024 or 2025, and fewer than 20 rulings in total over the past eight years.

If a member of the public wants to lodge a complaint, they must pay a “refundable deposit” of R5,000 to Independent and sign away their right to pursue legal action. Press Council complaints, by contrast, are free of charge and have no such strings attached.

That distinction became more than academic in 2024. Independent Media rejoined the Press Council in January that year, possibly with an eye on the MDPMI outcome, only to be expelled some 10 months later for repeatedly refusing to abide by rulings against its content.

A fight for principle — or for loopholes?

Yet Independent insists that its lack of Press Council membership should not disqualify it from relief.

One argument, which is reasonable enough, is that Google’s practices harmed all SA’s news media, not just outlets with preferred regulatory affiliations.

“All print and online media were impacted by the conduct of Google,” states Jacobs’ affidavit, and therefore all should qualify for compensation.

Other arguments are considerably more outlandish: that the Press Council membership requirement, for instance, is a form of back-door coercion into joining a competitors’ association.

“The Press Council membership condition negates freedom of association,” argues Jacobs, insisting that tying support to membership “indirectly coerces publishers” into a particular regulatory body.

Independent further claims that because the Press Council is “an association of competitors”, compulsory membership risks violating competition law and could expose the company to fines of up to 10% of turnover.

The logic here is curious, given that Independent Media voluntarily rejoined the Press Council in 2024 — and remained happily unconcerned about “collusion risk” until it was expelled for misconduct.

Public interest journalism demands public accountability

The reality is that the Competition Commission did not demand Press Council membership, and has no association with the Press Council at all. It simply linked eligibility for public-interest support, as offered by Google, to public-interest accountability.

Membership of the Press Council provides, at least in theory, a baseline of ethical oversight that the commission could recognise and rely upon.

Allowing Independent Media — a group with an inglorious track record of publishing misleading content, including articles benefiting its owner, Iqbal Survé — to claim public-interest funding without meaningful accountability would have attracted its own criticism.

If Independent Media is determined to benefit from remedies intended to sustain public-interest journalism, there is a straightforward path available: submit to a recognised accountability system and abide by its rulings.

Until then, its demand for a share of relief funds looks less like a defence of media freedom and more like a fight to avoid transparency while benefiting from those who embrace it. DM