Despite the ANC-led government's assurances that the media will not be gagged, the writing is on the wall for everyone to contemplate - a move seen by some critics as the product of the rise of conservative authoritarianism in post-apartheid SA.
Mark Weinberg, of the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) said: "These threats to the media freedom signal the growing influence of conservative authoritarianism in our body politic. We have witnessed various expressions of this including the attempts by some traditional leaders, through the House of Traditional Leaders, to revive the apartheid era social, political and economic control of the countryside through the post-apartheid legislation...
"The rise of conservative authoritarianism can best be understood against the backdrop of SA's deepening economic crisis...The majority of South Africans are understandably worried and look to their leaders and the media for explanation and direction.
"The tendency towards greater conservative authoritarianism must also be understood in the context of the battle between various factions and groups fighting for influence in the ruling party and the state."
Zuma this week reminded editors and journalists that they were not society's watchdog as they claim because they were never elected.
Media reports quoted the president as saying that the ANC fought for the rights and understands what are the rights.
"The constitution talks about the privacy of people. At times things that are private are not made private in the manner in which the reportings are done," he said.
But AIDC's Weinberg believes the rage against the media is fomented by some sections of the ANC and SACP leadership who, unable to maintain organisational discipline, have turned on the media with proposals to censor and punish reporting on corruption.
He also argued that the vast majority of reports focusing on the personal and business lives of public figures are undoubtedly in the public interest.
The Citizen newspaper also attacks the president on the issue of people's privacy. It said today: "Yet he (Zuma) adds to the darkness by distorting genuine concerns about people's right to privacy. A mere sliver of his embarrassing private life has been exposed in the media."
The war of words between the media and the ruling ANC is getting nasty every day, and some observers are convinced that these are the signs that Africa's most powerful democratic dispensation is falling apart so fast despite boasting the world's most liberal Constitution.
Perhaps the Constitutional Court will be the ultimate battleground of SA's survival of freedom of expression, ideas, conscience and ideologies.
Time will tell!
