JOHANNESBURG - In his recent defence of the ANC's plans for a media tribunal President Jacob Zuma took umbrage at the suggestion "that this is an attempt by the ruling party to control and bulldoze the media using the tactics of apartheid regime. To even suggest that the ANC and its government could have any similarities to the apartheid regime is not only preposterous, it is also disingenuous and an unbearable insult."

Zuma may well be right, and no doubt one of the media tribunal's first tasks, once established, will be to quash the making of any such unpatriotic comparisons.

But if one goes through press clippings from the period of 1979 to 1982, at least, it is not exactly the differences that jump out and slap you in the face. For it was in that period that the National Party government made its final, sustained, but ultimately unsuccessful effort, to implement a statutory council to "govern" the press in South Africa.

On September 18 1979 the National Party Minister of Justice and the Interior, Alwyn Schlebusch, mooted the establishment of a statutory press council would enforce a press code "with which all newspapers published in the Republic" would have to comply.

This body, Schlebusch suggested, would "be empowered to investigate a complaint that the code has been contravened." In the case of a guilty finding it would have the power to fine and/or suspend the "person primarily responsible for the report concerned", and fine and/or ban the newspaper in which it appeared. If a journalist was found guilty of contravening the code the council could "fine him or prohibit him temporarily or permanently from practicing the profession of a journalist or reporter."

On June 27 1980 Schlebusch announced that Justice M T Steyn, a former administrator of South West Africa, would head up a commission of inquiry into the mass media in South Africa. The commission was tasked with inquiring into and reporting on "the question whether the conduct of, and the handling of matters by the mass media meet the needs and interests of the South African community and the demands of the times, and, if not, how they can be improved."

Not surprisingly the Steyn Commission found, when it reported in early 1982, that the press did not. The commission's recommendations followed two lines:

The first was that there should be a statutory control of the press through a "central general council." Government would appoint the first 12-man council. Later, it would composed of three government appointed members, and three each elected by journalists from newspapers, magazines and the SABC.

According to the Cape Argus (February 1 1982) "This council will decide who is to be registered and no one may employ anyone who is not registered....Journalists would face reprimand, suspension or removal from the roll in addition to fines of up to R3,000. Employment of unregistered journalists would be punishable by fines of up to R,5000."

The second recommendation was that legislation be passed to break up the existing shareholdings of newspaper companies. "No person would be allowed to hold more than one percent of a public newspaper company's shares. In the case of private companies, nobody would be allowed to own more than 10 percent of the shares or share capital."

In justifying these measures the commission complained that under the existing system of self-regulation the Press Council had some bark but very little bite. Steyn stated:

"The council as now been in operation for 20 years. It has dealt with many complaints and cases. Yet it does not seem as if it has succeeded in curbing excessive irresponsible journalism. The basic problem with the council remains that it is obliged to exert moral pressure and to depend on the willingness of media managers to be influenced by such pressure."

The solution, the commission argued, was through the "professionalization" of the press. "Quoting the examples of medicine and the law," the Cape Argus reported, "the commission report gave lengthy reasons why the Press in particular and the media in general needed a register of practitioners."

A comparison

It is difficult to identify too many differences between the ANC's plans for a tribunal and the Nat tactics to "bulldoze the media" through a statutory press council.

The ANC's 2007 resolution on the Media Appeals Tribunal stated that, if established, the body would "be a statutory institution [which would] be made accountable to parliament." It would have the power to "adjudicate over matters or complaints expressed by citizens against print media."

Zuma has said that the media needs to be "governed" but it remains unclear precisely how the tribunal would exercise control (would there have to be a register of journalists?) ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu has only suggested that fines and jail time could be used to discipline the press. "If you have to go to prison, let it be" he told the Mail & Guardian. "If you have to pay millions for defamation, let it be. If journalists have to be fired because they don't contribute to the South Africa we want, let it be."

The ANC has also called for changes in the ownership structures of the media.

In placing the tribunal directly under parliamentary (i.e. ANC) control the ruling party plans go further than those of the Nats, as does the suggestion that journalists could be sent to prison by the tribunal for their reporting. Crucially, if the ANC manages to establish this body, and ANCYL President Julius Malema promises that they will, they would have succeeded where successive National Party governments failed.

Many of the arguments presented in favour of greater control can be found both in National Party complaints, the Steyn Commission's report and ANC/SACP documents. A standard objection, then and now, is that the existing system of self-regulation is totally insufficient. Steyn complained that the Press Council "seems to be almost totally ineffectual where it is really needed: in improving the standards of the unscrupulous." The SACP meanwhile moans that its successor body, the Press Ombudsman, is "inadequate" and firmer measures are needed to protect the public "from sensationalist and ideologically inspired libel."

In his recent defence of the tribunal idea Zuma echoed Steyn's arguments that if professionals such as lawyers or doctors can be kept in check through statutory bodies, why not journalists as well?

Both the Nats and the ANC demand that the press submits to their larger national project. The Star (February 2 1982) noted that the Steyn Commission wanted the press harnessed to National Party government's "total strategy." The ANC meanwhile demands that it submit to what is left of the National Democratic Revolution.

The response to the Nat proposals

As the ANC is doing today the Nats took a crab-like approach to trying to push through measures to curtail press freedom. Their proposals were merely aimed, so the argument went, at preventing "abuse" and "irresponsible" reporting.

Despite the Nats' best efforts to disguise their real intentions, the Steyn Commission's recommendations were met with a wall of opposition by the English language press.

Then, as now, opposition to the proposals was led (inter alia) by a former editor of the Sunday Times. In an article in the Cape Times (February 3 1982) Joel Mervis wrote: "Grotesque! And totally irreconcilable with the concept of a free press! That is probably a fair comment on the report of the Steyn commission of inquiry into the press. The gulf between Steyn-style censorship on the one hand and press freedom on the other is just about as wide as the gulf which separates the philosophies of Pravda and Izvestia from the ideas of Thomas Jefferson."

In a front page editorial The Star (February 2 1982) commented that the Steyn Commission "has proposed legislation against freedom of expression which, though clothed in the most persuasive language, moves closer to ‘thought control' than anything dared by Hertzog, Smuts, Malan, Verwoerd, Strijdom or Vorster. None of South Africa's past leaders, even in wartime, went so far as imposing general statutory regulations on a free Press."

Percy Goboza, former editor of the banned newspaper The World, told the Sowetan that if the proposed legislation was adopted then "this nation hovers on the brink of the most frightening dictatorship."

Then, as now, the International Press Institute called on the South African government to rethink pushing ahead with these proposals. In a letter to Prime Minister PW Botha the IPI's director, Peter Galliner, wrote:

"The recommended changes would make South Africa's press a Government-controlled media. The compulsory registration of journalists on a Government-created register and the establishment of a tribunal which could discipline journalists would make a mockery of your Government's claim to have a free Press. The acceptance of the recommendations would totally destroy the already curtailed Press freedom in your country."

Then, as now, Ray Louw argued against the proposals. In an article published on February 2 1982 he noted that the National Press Union and journalists "have a deep fear of registration [and the proposed tribunal] because they believe it can be used to penalise them for practising their craft vigorously to the possible embarrassment of vested interest and authority."

Then, as now, commentators asked how politicians would like to be governed by a disciplinary council? The editor of the Cape Times, Tony Heard, stated: "Let the politician consider how totally inhibited he would feel if a statement, which need be no offence at law, were to cost him his livelihood or a fine of R3,000. He would play it safe to the point of becoming a mere adornment on the political stage."

Comment

Thus, insulting as it may be to point them out, there are many rather spooky similarities between the Nat proposal for a Media Appeals Tribunal and ANC plans for a statutory press council. Thankfully the response of the free press in South Africa is much the same.

In a sense both regimes are pushing these plans at a similar point in their history. By 1982 the National Party's motivating ideology (of separate development) had essentially run into the ground, its own intelligentsia was beginning to repudiate it, it was internally divided, and on the verge of a split.

The ANC is in a very similar place. The moral authority that once came with dominance has dissipated. Its transformatory ideology has also run to ground. Corruption is eating away at its flesh, and the ruling party is worried that the resultant stench will make the public (and not just the media) turn away in disgust.

It seems that when once dominant parties finally catch sight of their own mortality they are at their most dangerous.

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