A LOOK at the media in recent weeks shows that the ANC and its alliance partners, or at least their talking heads, are again, and rather predictably, getting a bit grumpy with the media and again raising the spectre of introducing a "media tribunal" (the mind boggles!)
The complaints from the establishment seem to coincide with the announcement that a business family, the Guptas, plan to launch a new ANC-aligned newspaper and the "new" Protection of Information Bill which, the usual democracy watchdogs have warned, could severely compromise media freedom.
It was, if I have it right, Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and Training and general secretary of the SA Communist Party, who kicked off the latest round of bash- the-media with a piece in Umsebenzi Online on July 7 about the Ashley Smith/Argus issue.
Nzimande treated it as though it was the most devastating evil that had ever befallen the media - whereas the issue has in fact been knocking around for years. It probably re-emerged recently due to someone's desire to further sully the already questionable reputation of the ANC's Ebrahim Rasool (who has been made ambassador to the US); and it was in fact about two foolish journalists who were trying to make a quick buck on the side.
Then, on July 15, Siphiwe Nyanda, the Minister of Communications, attacked the press for claiming that he had suspended his director-general because she had insinuated that he had had his fingers in the proverbial cookie jar.
On July 18 Jackson Mthembu, the ANC spokesperson, issued a statement attacking the media for "mischievously and disingenuously" criticising ministers for staying in luxury hotels.
It was perfectly fine, Mthembu explained, for ministers Nathi Mthethwa, Nzimande and Nyanda to stay in luxury hotels while their Cape Town houses were being re-furbished.
Why Mthembu (who works for the ANC, not the government) made this statement one does not rightly know. But there was some wonderful stuff in his statement. For example: "No luxury can be derived in staying and working from a hotel environment where you have no total privacy than staying in a proper home (sic)."
We hope the owners of the Mount Nelson hotel do not sue Mthembu for denigrating their product. And we should also remember that without a "world class holistic spa experience, where the trilogy of mind, body and spirit is nurtured," which is what the Mount Nellie apparently offers, there is no way that Nzimande could get his mind around the problems presented by higher education.
The next day, Mthembu again spoke out. This time he attacked columnist Justice Malala for "asserting" that the SABC had banned interviews with former President Thabo Mbeki. Another great sentence from his pen: "The ANC will never scoop (sic) low to undermine the very democratic values that many of our members and our leaders died fighting for ..."
Interestingly, however, there has been no overt reaction to the quite detailed reporting about the extent to which the Presidency seems to be falling apart as far as staffing is concerned. Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, support services chief director Steyn Speed, economic adviser Mandisi Mpahlwa and communications deputy DG Vusi Mona are gone. So, it seems, is DG Vusi Mavimbela.
There was presumably little governmental reaction to the reportage because, firstly, it was pretty accurate (though slightly slanted - Steyn, for example, said a year ago that he was going on study leave); and, secondly, because none of the reporters or columnists who reported on the issue (including me) saw much significance in the changing of the inner guard.
But one commentator who did was politics Professor Anthony Butler of Wits University who wrote on Monday that: "(What the staff changes suggest is that) the Presidency is in danger of becoming a symbolic institution, dedicated to projecting an image of a beloved national leader and obsessed with how the world looks rather than with how it is.
"If this continues, its practical work will increasingly fall away. The planning commission will plan and the monitoring unit will monitor. But ministers and premiers will do their own thing, oblivious to one another and unable to work towards a wider national good."
I couldn't agree more with anything I have read in the media recently.
The second edition of Jeremy Gordin's biography of Jacob Zuma is now on sale. This article first appeared in the Daily Dispatch.
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