12 August 2010: Take the media appeals tribunal off the table
The Professional Journalists' Association of South Africa supports calls made by City Press editor Ferial Haffajee and Wits University's Prof Anton Harber last night at the Critical Thinking Forum, hosted by M&G and Amandla, for the ANC to take the proposed media appeals tribunal off the table.
While ProJourn believes that there is room to evaluate and strengthen the mechanisms through which the print media regulates itself, it fully agrees with comments made during the debate last night that such impetus for self-improvement should not come from the ANC, but rather from within the media itself.
ProJourn agrees that the media faces challenges in terms of ownership, transformation and diversity, a point made by Jackson Mthembu, the national ANC spokesperson, and concurred with by Harber and the AIDC's Mark Weinberg.
It further agrees with Harber, who noted that the ANC is taking on the privately owned media but doing nothing about the broadcast and community media.
Harber challenged the ANC to sort out the SABC and "get serious" about supporting community media first.