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I JOKED with my colleague Sikonathi Mantshantsha that the only reason Sunday Times journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika was arrested was that they couldn't find Sikonathi.
This is because Sikonathi is camped out in the UK doing an internship with the Financial Times, and hasn't had time of late to write any scathing stories about corruption or inefficiency at the Industrial Development Corporation.
There is quite a lot of excitement in media circles at the moment, with the threat of "censored" journalism being touted.
I'm not going to get into that debate, apart from pointing out that if the Nats couldn't do it at the height of apartheid, when they controlled phone lines and the majority of newspapers, how can this possibly be achieved with tools like Twitter, Facebook and blogs all setting the media agenda?
Perhaps that is a bit dismissive of the media tribunal and the so-called secrecy bill. I certainly don't want to see the media lose its independence, I just can't see it happening in the near future.
With due respect, if a blogger writes something on a Google blog or Facebook which is a fair reflection of a set of events or a person and does not amount to hate speech, those two companies will extend the middle finger to anybody who tries to act against them, especially a politician from the bottom of Africa.
But I digress.
At the heart of a big part of this debate is the media's insistence on focusing only on politicians' negatives, and barely giving any coverage to the positive work they do. I think that's fair enough criticism, but good news has to come in context with the bad as well.
Take it on the chin, General
There is a fantastic sound clip 5FM's Gareth Cliff uses on his morning show. It comes from a speech given by "the General" Bheki Cele, where he talks about police officers taking pride in their bodies and appearance.
The National Commissioner of Police says something along the lines of "Too often we see police officers with their stomachs out and their chests in, when it should be stomach in, chest out".
Exactly Mr General, sir.
You expect the media to write about the good news that crime is down for a month during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but then you go and (reportedly) disregard regulations by taking out a new lease on a building for half a billion rand with somebody who has political connections.
All this, I might add, while your police officers who did the extra World Cup shifts are still waiting to be paid a month down the line.
Politicians can't complain that the media does not write about the success of transformation or empowerment initiatives or entrepreneurs in the mining sector, when the idea of "entrepreneurship" involves grabbing mining rights from ArcelorMittal or Lonmin.
Bottomless booze and flashy cars
I would love to write a success story about a black mining entrepreneur who can afford to blow R28 000 in a single night on booze for a party for his 100 nearest and dearest friends, but at least make it a good story to tell.
Secretly I am hoping they will invite me to come drinking with them, and I promise to invite Julius to chaperone in case I try to sleep with somebody to get information.
There can't be complaints that we wade into Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda when one of the biggest inhibitors to economic growth in South Africa is the lack of a world class telecommunications infrastructure - yet we hear of millions of rands in contracts being awarded to "well-connected" (pardon the pun) companies linked to politicians.
Similarly, Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande cannot complain about the media writing negative stories about him driving "flashy" cars when we have lost every single job created since 1994 and over-zealous trade unions are hell-bent on crippling the economy.
For the record, when he spoke at a recent journalism awards lunch and announced a crackdown on ill-performing sector education and training authorities or Setas, every single editor was banging away instructions on their phones to lackeys to get cracking on a "Blade cracks the whip" story.
So in humble conclusion: let's move this debate away from some pie-in-the-sky belief that you can regulate the media.
If the General genuinely believes that those who work for government should take pride in what they do, maybe he should be drumming the mantra of "stomach in, chest out" into them rather than worrying about the media doing it for him.
- Fin24.com
