First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

Not the boots of the police, army, ministers of police, state security and defence, nor the president and his ANC. The boots on the ground, from the first hour of the attempted insurrection/economic sabotage turned anarchy, were the reporters, who scrambled around doing their jobs of informing the public – under dangerous conditions, and right from the start.

The authorities were missing in action, for days (Minister of Police Bheki Cele, Commissioner Khehla Sitole, President Cyril Ramaphosa, State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula), while social media called on them to switch on their TVs, in case they weren’t sure where to go to stop the burning.

There is talk of criminal intelligence and police being caught off-guard, and understaffed, without enough teargas and water cannon. I feel their pain. But then what about jumping into action when the scenes of violence emerged? If they could not control the fires, they could have been interviewed by the media.

Reporters had only looters to interview to get a sense of what was happening. Loot, of course, has become the most popular word in SA public discourse, even though looting started with State Capture.

We heard (in the media) that police couldn’t be everywhere at the same time. I reckon there are fewer reporters than there are police in the country, yet the reporters were just about everywhere.

The violence seemed to have largely stopped by Mandela Day – 18 July – a day when people were lauded for cleaning up and sending bags of goods to KZN. The media told this good-news story about SA’s resilience and community spirit.

From day one of the violence, which began with the torching of trucks on the N2, the media tried its best to tell the story as it was unfolding. However confusing it was, and continues to be, reporters played their role in our democracy.

Besides uncensored live broadcasts, these issues are analysed in many publications we are fortunate to have in SA. We don’t have a media in which only the government’s side of the story can be published. We take this media freedom for granted. In many parts of the world – China, Russia, many Latin American and African states, to name a few – there is “private media” and “state media” and governments take down Twitter. In SA, we have the media, warts and all, not serving any one particular mistress or master.

The media could have been missing in action too, considering the job-loss crisis in journalism. Retrenchment in mainstream and community newsrooms began before the Covid-19 pandemic, then was exacerbated by it, just when reliable information was a priority. The State of the Newsroom publications from 2013-2020, published by Wits Journalism, show that to 2020 journalism steadily shed jobs for more than a decade, from the economic downturn of 2008 onwards, a result of digital disruption and loss of advertising.

Then there’s social media. Often filled with unverified information and disinformation, it has also been used to orchestrate the violence. In 2020, researcher Reg Rumney examined the impact of Covid-19 job losses in journalism, finding that more than 700 journalists were retrenched in just the first few months of the pandemic, and that hyperlocal news lost the most; 80 community newspapers under the Association of Independent Publishers closed. By July 2020, a new round of retrenchments was announced when Primedia (702, KFM, Cape Talk, EWN) had job cuts. Primedia has 786 full-time employees but a job cut figure cannot be verified. Also in July 2020, Media24 said it would retrench about 510 employees. It employed again this year, though fewer than it retrenched. In 2020, the SABC cut about 600 media jobs.  The overall job loss figure for journalists is in the thousands.

Still, we saw journalists do their jobs, sometimes without protective gear – but we heard Cele say on live TV: “We used crime intelligence on the ground to respond with speed.” Not quite a fact. On 12 July, as parts of the country burned and the images flashed on our screens, we saw more chasms: an avuncular and exhausted president asking for calm.

What we saw in a week of violence:

One of the first images was that of a burning truck, apparently carrying R15-million worth of oranges, one of South Africa’s biggest exports;

Then more burning trucks, buildings, shops and cars;

Vigilantism, with some residents shooting, some holding vigils;

Looters were interviewed, giving their side of the story – these were varied;

No police, but when they first arrived, they mainly stood by and watched;

A looter with a middle-class car casually trying to load a smart TV into his car, eventually fitting it into his boot;

Fire brigades arriving after the buildings were destroyed.

The disconnect between and within the state, government and ANC, and with the people is complicated to untangle.

In other chasms, journalists and news organisations have made repeated representations to the president’s office to get Ramaphosa to take questions. These questions would be on behalf of the public, which journalists serve. But these requests, instead of getting the attention they deserve, seem to be received as irritations. Ramaphosa would probably benefit, given that his addresses to the nation tend to be wooden. If he answered questions, in press conferences, during our crisis, he may spring into animation.

We saw journalists do their jobs; there were many who were attacked by community members and looters and injured in the crossfire. But they stepped up. For this, I am grateful; I saw a lot.

Hats off to these boots on the ground who risk their safety every day but especially during the violence, and now the most traumatic humanitarian crisis in democratic SA. The emergent pattern is: factional politics in the ANC, the long game of consensus-seeking by the president, the poor suffering, and the media covering it all. DM168

Glenda Daniels is an associate professor of media studies at Wits University. She sits on the executive of Sacomm, the Press Council and Sanef, but thes views are her own.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for R25 at Pick n Pay, Exclusive Books and airport bookstores. For your nearest stockist, please click here.