South Africa has dropped dramatically from 25th place last year to 38 in 2024 out of 180 countries on Reporters without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, with a particularly low score for economic context (58), high for legal (80) and social-cultural context (82) and a good political score (72).

However, right now, our biggest red flag to watch as we mark World Press Freedom Day (3 May), just before our national elections, is the political space where journalists’ independence is being threatened, as “comrades will be watching” the media space. A few days ago the editor-in-chief of the SABC, the biggest employer of journalists, Moshoeshoe Monare, told his staff he was being summoned by the State Security Agency (SSA) for a “security vetting”, City Press reported. This is two years into his employment, but a few weeks before the elections. The recording of this SABC editorial meeting, where Monare tells his staff of the strange call, was leaked to the media. The SSA is supposed to act on behalf of “state security”, not the ANC government. When journalists don’t toe the party line they are vilified as “enemies of the people”, given that the ANC conflates itself with “the people”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: SABC vetting row — ‘Ramaphosa will never sanction harassment of journalists,’ says his spokesperson 

Press Freedom indexes on World Press Freedom Day are great for testing the robustness of a democracy. Around the world democracies are celebrating press freedom, free flow of information and expression while the serious hotspots are highlighted by research organisations such as Reporters without Borders (RSF), the Committee to Protect Journalists and Unesco. In Windhoek in 1991, the UN General Assembly declared 3 May World Press Freedom Day to raise awareness of the freedom of the press and to remind governments everywhere to respect freedom of expression enshrined in our various constitutions. Politicians, political parties and their supporters are donning their brightest smiles to cosy up for a spot of the media limelight, while their party supporters and online trolls are busy vilifying journalists who don’t sing their praise songs. 

The best for journalists in this hot pre-election era is to remember their mission. (Graphic: Midjourney AI)

Journalists, opinion polls and fair game

Opinion polls are now a dime a dozen and so journalists can’t just accept willy nilly what they produce without some interrogation: what if they are, together with the pollsters, way out after the election? The latest Ipsos poll puts the ANC down to 40.2%. Ipsos is internationally reputable. But ANC supporters are already accusing journalists of siding with opposition parties when they report this. Journalists, in general though, do need to question polls about methodology, what size the sample was and the location of the surveys, rural or urban, or just KwaZulu-Natal (for example, the much talked about new MK party, which is at 8% in this poll), among other things. 

The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef), whose mission is to protect and promote media freedom, diversity and ethics, noted in a statement recently: “While these polls serve as valuable indicators of public sentiment, opinion polls, if not handled with care, have the potential to sway public perception and influence electoral outcomes significantly.” It said journalists and editors should think about their audiences first.

Journalists can be wittingly or unwittingly fair game for “brown envelopes” (bribes) to provide sweet coverage, to even quash a story, or get NGOs to get involved in their bun fights. Last week the official opposition, the DA, asked Sanef to release a statement about a recording from an ANC National Executive Committee meeting, where President Cyril Ramaphosa can be heard saying: “TV stations have no right to be negative towards us… We want more than fair treatment (from the media). There will be a team of comrades who will be watching this space all the time.”

The DA called this “blatant manipulation” and asked Sanef to release a statement condemning this. The organisation didn’t, since it knows this is going to be happening daily. Everyone wants the media on their side to fight their opponents. Politicians and political parties try to get the media to blow trumpets for them. Par for the course in election times. But when the editor-in-chief of the SABC gets a call to be “vetted” two years after his appointment, a week after the Ramaphosa recording, and a few weeks before the election, it’s a huge red flag for media freedom in South Africa. The Presidency responded that Monare didn’t produce all his documentation two years ago, and that he had an aversion to doing a “polygraph test”, News24 reported.

This technicality, raised now, is an intimidatory tactic and nothing else. 

The best for journalists in this hot pre-election era is to remember their mission: to be reliable conduits of information to the public and provide the facts and analysis based on facts, and not be influenced by those who want sweet coverage. The aim should be to tell the truth, get many sides to a story before publishing, and give people their right to reply so that they don’t fall foul of the Press Code of South Africa. Be fair and factual in coverage. Journalists are part of the oversight function during elections. They call out shenanigans, such as another breaking news story this week: IEC offices broken into in Parktown. The press hold the powerful to account and journalists are there for the public during the election itself: for instance, they report that the electoral station was closed at 7am when it was meant to be open, or that the ballot forms were falling out of boxes and getting lost. They play a role in giving voice to all, and in far-flung areas.

Sad decline of media due to commercial imperatives

South African journalists are doing this, albeit in difficult conditions of budget cuts (probably why we got a low score for economic context in the index), in the global era of declining media and job losses, but which mirrors our country too, coupled with proliferating social media, with its penchant for fake news and cyberbullying, an unsafe place for journalists. Both these issues are global but now, with our most highly contested elections yet, 30 years after the dawn of democracy with more parties than before (officially 70, and 11 independent candidates), the terrain is rougher than ever, politically and economically.

Over the past 15 years South Africa has lost nearly 70% of its media workforce and been in rapid decline for the past 10. The commercial advertising model of the past is dead, given that advertising moved online, benefiting the big techs (FAANGs) and killing local media. 

Now newsrooms are short staffed; resources are few and far between, especially to send journalists to far-flung areas to cover the elections. Voices, plurality and diversity are lost. There could be voting stations in some rural areas that don’t open in time, or where there is intimidation of voters, and this just isn’t reported as journalists are not stationed there because media companies cannot afford to send them. This is as serious a media freedom issue as political interference.

South Africa on the World Press Freedom map 

The World Press Freedom index map, courtesy of RSF, shows that the world’s journalists are under attack, with redder countries. In 2023, the main theme was that journalism was being threatened by the fake content industry.

RSF’s methodology is based on the definition of press freedom as “the ability of journalists as individuals and collectives to select, produce and disseminate news in the public interest independent of political, economic, legal and social interference and in the absence of threats to their physical and mental safety” – five indicators. 

In 2023, out of 180 countries, South Africa came 25th and is yellow on the map, meaning “satisfactory” along with Australia and Canada, and a few other Global North types, with only one other African country, Namibia (22nd), beating it.

So, last year it scored 25, the year before, 35 and in 2024, sadly even though still yellow, it has dropped dramatically to 38. DM