It is worth parsing ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu's latest attack on the Mail & Guardian, which can be found here.

The nub of his criticism is that the M&G, using "ghost sources", has made a series of claims about the president which he says are false. He is upset that the paper said that some elements of the Youth League, Cosatu, the Veterans' League and the ANC executive, no longer support President Jacob Zuma. He challenges the paper's suggestion that Zuma has been traveling the country to consolidate his power, and that his intervention in the public service strike was a bid to shore up his personal position.

Mthembu is upset that the M&G has not accepted the official version of events: that the president enjoys full and unequivocal support, that his travel was part of a wider NEC mandate for senior leadership to prepare for the National General Council and that the president's strike intervention was a logical follow-up to ANC calls for a resolution. What is interesting about his criticism is that he seems upset that the M&G has not simply taken at face value the ANC's official explanations for these things, but added their own interpretation, analysis and reporting.

Is this conscious naiveté, is it just bluster, or does he seriously think that political journalism is about reproducing ANC statements? What is one to make of this sweeping statement: "The ANC NEC, including President Zuma, enjoys the full confidence of the entire members, its branches, its regions and its provinces"? This is a claim so ludicrous, so patently ridiculous, that it stretches Mthembu's credibility way beyond its limits. Does he expect the media just to repeat that?

The worrying part of what Mthembu is saying is that he does not accept that events may be subject to different interpretations and analyses, that the M&G is entitled to a different view, and that there is space for this fairly standard kind of political reporting.

He is upset that their sources are anonymous. This is only partly true, as a number of people are quoted, including trade union figures confirming that their members have lost confidence in Zuma. (No doubt Mthembu will carry a correction with due prominence.) The piece is quite balanced with a range of ANC people quoted as well. And most of the anonymous sources meet the requirement to spell out clearly what kind of source it is, such as "several ANC sources linked to the Youth League" and "Zuma lobbyists".

Mthembu must know that nobody in the ANC is going to discuss these things on the record with the media, and to expect the newspaper not to report what many people are saying just because nobody will go on the record, is to ask it to abandon its mission of seeking out the truth. This is standard political reporting as you might expect in any democracy.

Mthembu also suggests that the paper was cruel and unfair to speculate on a possible cabinet shuffle, "causing untold anxiety not only to the ministers, but also to their families". Yet this kind of reporting is a fundamental part of political journalism. It is something done by political reporters everywhere, and by many people in the ANC all the time.

What Mthembu cannot see is that we all read a report like this with a sceptical eye, and we decide which bits of it are convincing and which are not. If the paper quotes people on the record, and doesn't use anonymous sources, it is easier to be convinced. But when they don't or can't, then we have other ways of assessing whether or not the story has credibility: we look at who wrote it, we weigh up their evidence or lack thereof, we scrutinise the logic of the analysis, and so on.

We might believe some parts and not others. If it has the feel of sensationalism, as Mthembu suggests, then we view it accordingly. We are able to make judgements. We don't take these reports at face value, just as we don't take Mthembu's statements at face value. But we do see a value in getting interpretations and analyses of events different from those put forward by Mthembu.

One could complain that the Mail & Guardian failed in its duty to differentiate between news and comment/analysis and this article - which was prominent on pages two and three, which are distinctly news pages - needed to be clearly marked as the latter. But this is a debatable point, and one that Mthembu does not raise.

It is worth recalling that in the run-up to Polokwane, the ANC was telling us that the organisation was not divided and what was happening was just a regular process to choose leadership. Media were constantly berated for suggesting that there was internal conflict and for the fact that they relied on anonymous sources for their stories. Those suggestions were laughed off at the time, and Polokwane - and the subsequent recall of President Thabo Mbeki - proved their veracity and validity. In fact, if the incumbent presidency had paid more attention to what some of the media was saying, and been less dismissive and derisive, then President Mbeki might not have been so blind-sided in Polokwane.

Mthembu's uses a language which is concerning. The M&G is not offering a view or interpretation, it is "vilifying"; it is not critical, it is "an insult"; it is not analysing the situation, it is an "attack on ANC leaders and the president" (and one must ask what the president might be if he is not an ANC leader); it is not reporting on divisions, it is "seeking to cause divisions"; this is not legitimate discussion, it is intended "to politically poison ANC membership"; it is not fair comment, it is "irresponsible reporting".

These are phrases which imply not only that the paper has crossed a line of acceptability, but that it is an enemy deliberately causing damage and division, that it is behaving improperly. These are dangerous words that seek to delegitimise this kind of political reporting.

And then there is Mthembu's kicker, his final paragraph. Against this background, "we [the ANC] raise once again the question, who protects us from such gutter and sensational journalism?" Now Mthembu is saying that the ANC needs regulation to shield it from this kind of debate, discussion, exposé, analysis and interpretation. He is implying that the proposed Media Appeals Tribunal would have as part of its mandate the power to punish the M&G for taking this view of the ANC.

He is trying to narrow the definition of acceptable comment, and this is where the real danger lies. He has exposed himself, and the real intention behind the Tribunal.

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. This article first appeared on his weblog.

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