Only publishing good news is not how democracy operates

When a reader complains that photographs in one of our publications had been "doctored" as a "strategy to destroy the ANC government," it becomes a matter of grave concern.

The photographs showed people scavenging in a municipal dump yard. The reader believes that they were posed, particularly considering the caption that read: "Together we can scavenge more".

He accuses the newspaper of having ignored the government's "progressive" achievements. What was telling in one photograph was that a man was wearing an ANC T-shirt. The story reported that when they covered this story some years ago, they found the situation exactly as it was today - including some of the people scavenging.

"Doctoring" a photo is considered an unpardonable sin by the media industry. With today's technology, "photoshopping" a photo to make it appear what it was not is easy. Some newspapers have been duped into publishing photos that had been "photoshopped", particularly in areas of conflict where one party wished to portray the other as the villain.

Reflecting reality

I do not believe that the photographs the reader was referring to had been "photoshopped". They were a true reflection of what happens when people try to survive by looking for food on dumps.

Clearly, these are not the kind of images that the government wishes the media to publish. It is the side of our world that they would rather we keep out of the public eye - as if that would make the problem go away.

There have been many reports of people saying that life under apartheid was better. This is more a reflection of people's desperation than of the truth. But in the world of such people, that perception is their reality.

There were shacks and dismal living conditions for blacks under apartheid. The apartheid government gave them names like Khayelitsha. These shacks disgorged their human cargo every morning, hidden away from the fancy white suburbs, to go into the cities to provide labour, and then sent back to the townships at night so that white South Africans can sleep peacefully.

Is this the outcome the reader wants?

The "poor white problem" was solved by giving every white person a job on the railways and other government structures.

The problem was that some of the major white newspapers, particularly the Afrikaans media, and the SABC, responded to similar calls as that of our reader - who I should add worked on a newspaper before skipping the country post-1976.

They were told to focus on the good life that whites have under apartheid. They only reported on the poverty "up north" to show that blacks here were better off than in most African countries, thanks to apartheid.

That government continued working in secret to hide the truth. What they did not want said was banned.

Surely, that is not the outcome that the reader wants? More importantly, that is not what the people who risk their health eating rotting food want.

It is easy to blame the media for the ills of our country, but newspapers do not manufacture news. Those that contemplate doing so, will be judged very harshly by our very discerning readers.

Source: Sowetan, via I-Net Bridge