I chose this editorial from Gulf News today, as it struck a cord with me. South Africa is a country I know pretty well, and one of the things that's troubled me about that great nation of late is its 'benevolent dictatorship'. Since 1994, when democracy came to South Africa and the ANC came to power, it's essentially functioned as a one-party state. That has probably served the country well in some respects - it's aided economic and political stability for example - but for democracy to mature the electorate needs choice. And, as today's linked article points out, it may be about to get it. The ANC appears to be on the cusp of splitting in two, as Mbeki's supporters play out their differences with Jacob Zuma and his followers. There is little doubt that this will be an ugly situation for some time to come, but in the long run it may be just what's needed - if, as the article suggests, the differences between the resulting political parties are based on policies, not just personalities.
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NEARLY THERE! It's the penultimate day of my year-long experiment today. And with the amount of bad news about at the moment, particularly on the economic front, I've been reflecting on what it's been like hunting for good news for the last year. It hasn't always been straightforward - some nights (though not the majority!) it's taken me several hours to find a story positive enough to post! But generally there is good news around. Some sources are better bets than others, and there are topics that reflect more hope than others (science, health and environment sections of newspapers are always good places to look). I have noticed that a greater number of publications now include sections with inspirational stories etc. But where the newswires dominate - which is in many places (this, I've discovered, is one of the media's great cons - you see the same stories, from the same agency reporter, and just different vehicles for transmission, with plenty of ads thrown in...) - the news tends towards crises or trivia, with the odd hopeful tale popping up every now and again. I'm sure there's more good stuff going on out there. If we want to read about it, we need to ask newspapers and broadcasters to report it - and then read it when they do...
Friday, October 10, 2008
365: multi-party democracy in South Africa?
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2 comments:
'If we want to read about it, we need to ask newspapers and broadcasters to report it - and then read it when they do...'
Absolutely right - and could there be a case for collective action, or at least a media-consumers' NGO on this, demanding a better quality of news? Since the demise of people like Mary Whitehouse (a self-appointed arbiter of taste in the UK, with a distinctly conservative mindset), consumers have tended to make individual choices on their media diet. Could there be a new media consumers organisation to set standards which would, for example, seek barriers between editorial comment and advertising income, and demand some positivity (and perhaps perspective, too)? At the moment, it's just the media suppliers who seem to be setting the standards, and they've got pretty low...
Well done for hacking away for a year to make things better, as well as showing how much better things are becoming!
Thanks, Diana - interesting idea re the consumers organization - surely there must be a disillusioned ex-journalist out there with a desire to do something like this?
I think the issues are different from country to country, though. In many countries, including the US, the media is less willing to scrutinize than it should be; in some countries, it's totally captured by vested interests; in the UK, one of the key issues seems to be a lack of integrity in certain parts of the media - a kind of 'anything goes' approach, where every story seems to be criticizing/ridiculing something or somebody...
It's a pretty sad state of affairs in some respects! But the main thing is getting greater diversity - there's room for all types of editorial viewpoint and media positioning, and for good news as well as the bad / mad!
And a final reason to be hopeful - there are some brilliant journalists out there, and some courageous editors who buck the current trends. All across the world, there are reporters who risk their lives in pursuit of the truth. And even where it's weaker than it should be, the media is a critical component of any free and democratic society (and perhaps even more critical in societies that are not free or democratic). So, it's a glass half full, I think, rather than half empty.
E
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