Prior to the ANC's ill-disciplined and tension-filled conference in Polokwane, the ruling party, most especially Msholozi's [Zuma's] supporters, made it clear that it was not happy with the media's behaviour, and it wished that it could conduct itself in a more ‘patriotic way'.
At the same conference, the ruling party vented that unhappiness and anger on the media when its marshals manhandled journalists, chased them away outside the conference hall, threatened to kill them, and damaged and confiscated their cameras, Agence France Presse reported.
“They grabbed me and started dragging me away and said: ‘we are arresting you',” Reuters photographer Siphiwe Sibeko was quoted by AFP as saying.
Now that the ‘champion of the people' has won the elections, beating the man who unceremoniously fired him from government, party insiders hinted that the new ANC guard will do whatever it can to ‘discipline' the media.
Already, journalists got the first glimpse of bitter things to come – under JZ rule – when they were barred from Zuma's wedding, insulted and venomously threatened by JZ's bodyguards and family members, according to a report by The Sunday Independent.
Zuma (65), Foreign Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's ex- husband, tied the knot with 33-year-old former nurse Nompumelelo ‘MaNtuli', on 5 January 2008 in his hometown of Nkandla.
Some observers believe it is the beginning of a merciless revenge against the media for what its ‘impartial' reporting on JZ.
But Prof Guy Berger, head of the School of Journalism & Media Studies at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, told Bizcommunity.com, “I would not agree with the words ‘merciless revenge'.
“However, there is a style in the Zuma camp which borders on intolerance and intimidation. This is something they need to work on in order to have a more sophisticated media management strategy.”
Some journalists interviewed by Bizcommunity.com duly expressed their concern about the new ANC president and his crusaders' anti-media antics and fear that dark days may lie ahead.
Prof Berger said, “Media fears about the Zuma people are fuelled by his resort to threatening defamation cases against journalists and even a cartoonist.
“The failure of Zuma himself to restrain intolerance is also a concern, and does not win him brownie points with the media.
“When the Zuma people were the underdogs, they felt the media was being used, or in cahoots with the Mbeki people – hence their antipathy to journalism in the mainstream media. But now that they have won the control of the party, they may feel less victimised, and more confident to deal with the media in a more conventional media relations manner.”
Author and award-winning veteran journalist Denis Kayenge Kinkufi said, “Media's intensive reporting on Zuma, which some felt was unfair, has ironically propelled his popularity and won him people's compassion.
“The press should know that Zuma is not a classic leader as the West and the intellectual class see it. He is a traditional leader, just like the ancient tribal chiefs, whose popularity lay on their not-so-fancy people.
“He might squeeze or ignore the press because he does not care about the press as he knows that it failed, despite all so-called negative reporting, to stop him from becoming ANC president.
“He is very confident that the press is nothing and he is a champion of the poor and the working class who felt neglected under Mbeki's classic rule and now believe that it has found their man.”
Asked whether SA's hard-fought freedom could be threatened under JZ rule, Prof Berger said, “Media freedom is being threatened by the ANC as a whole in regard to the Film and Publications Amendment Act, and the media tribunal proposal, which predate the Zuma victory.
“Unfortunately both elements in the ANC share a misguided interest in seeking to control the media, instead of appreciating that it is in each of their interests to have an independent media.
“Editors need to do more to persuade them all of the value of an independent media. We should not forget, however, that no political force can operate in violation of the broad parameters of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of the speech and the media.”
South Africa was ranked 43rd in the 2007 Worldwide Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF).
But many observers fear that under JZ rule the country might join the likes of media freedom backsliders Zimbabwe, DRC, Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Gambia, Niger and many others.
