Understanding the faultlines in SA Press

Fewer South Africans buy newspapers today than they did in 1960.

Recently, the Independent Newspapers was forced to sell its South African operations due a myriad mix of problems. Most Independent Newspapers titles are on a downward spiral except Isolezwe titles.

The Sunday Times IsiZulu edition has closed down.

It is not a good time in South Africa to own a newspaper especially an Afrikaans/English one.

According to the latest data (Amps Q1 2013) total sales for daily newspapers dropped from 1, 68-m to 1, 53-m (daily average) in the last year.

Drop in sales

Total sales of weeklies slipped except for Soccer Laduma. And for weekend papers, the total fell from 2, 42-m to 2, 27-m (weekly average). Afrikaans newspapers continued their downward slide: Beeld down 10% to 66,132; Burger a small drop to 61,484; Daily Son about 10% to 96,598.

Let us put this into perspective, according to Anton Harber, in 1960, the Star sold 183,000 copies and it is down to almost half that; the Cape Argus sold 105,000 and now sells 32,000.

Why are fewer South Africans buying newspapers? Yet more are now free, educated and urbanised.

There is also little evidence that South African newspaper readers have migrated to digital platforms.

According to the report entitled South Africa Internet Usage Statistics 2012: One in three (34%) adults now uses the internet. Two out of three Internet users (66%) speak an African language at home; most of them have not been educated beyond school level and four out of ten live on less than R1,500 per month.

Some of the other key findings in the report include: Most new Internet users (52%) first used the Internet on their phones. Most (54%) of those are at school or college. More people now go online daily (22%) than daily read a newspaper (17%).

Is the South African press, an agent of the ruling class? The answer is no. This means most literature on political economy of the media does not fit nicely to the South Africa's reality.

Two ideologies

We are a country of two ideologies. One is the dominant oppositionist liberal ideology of the mainstream English/Afrikaans press and the other is the ANC and its Alliance partner's ideology advocating for transformation and redress. Strangely, unlike in other liberal societies the South African ruling class represented by the ANC do not set the news agenda. They may be the ruling class, but they don't possess the dominant ideology at least in the eyes of the English and Afrikaans press.

The dominant ideology is set somewhere in a-smoke-filled-rooms by newspaper editors steeped in the culture of oppositionist stance to the ruling class and whose preoccupation is always an imminent danger that our democratic project is under threat from the very same people who brought us freedom.

According to one of their own named Carlos Amato: "The English press, an irritatingly sanctimonious brigade whose keen sense of moral outrage is often driven by a keen sense of profit..."

Simply put, the new ruling class still do not own the means of production. They have political power without the necessary muscle to gain ascendency and make their ideology a dominant one.

The South African Afrikaans/English press writes for the middle class which is dominated by dwindling numbers of white monied males.

The South African English/Afrikaans press has not benefited from the emergence of Black Diamonds, a term coined by TNS Research Surveys (Pty) Ltd and the UCT Unilever Institute to refer to members of South Africa's fast-growing, affluent and influential black community (3 million at the last count) or neither from increased numbers of people with matric, and post matric and post-graduate qualification.

Here are raw facts

According to the latest Census data, the percentage of the population who completed a higher education which includes certificates, diplomas above Grade 12, as well as degrees and postgraduate qualifications, increased from 7.1% in 1996 to 8.4% in 2001 and slightly increased in 2011 to 12.1%.

The proportion of persons who completed secondary education or higher education increased from 23.4% in 1996 to 40.5% in 2011.

I want to argue that at the time when the South African story is becoming increasingly interesting and complex, the press is unable to shake off its oppositionist ideology. The narrative of South Africa on a verge of explosion, likely to become a wasteland or just another African country does not resonate well with the majority of citizens.

The English/Afrikaans press write for the audience that is long dead; and the tone used when reporting on the ruling class elites is condescending.

Let me illustrate, the 3.3 million black South Africans living in electrified RDP houses with modern ablution facilities don't give a fig about the Gupta scandal. They have own their stories to tell, but no outlets to do so.

The eight million children in no fee schools care less about the cost of iNkandla compound as long as workbooks, books and a hot meal is delivered to them daily.

The 657,690 FET students studying for free will hardly benefit from the Tokoloshe stories in the Daily Sun nor editorials lampooning Jacob Zuma for yet another so called "gate" scandal.

These people are direct beneficiaries of the new South Africa. They yearn for the day when their own stories will feature prominently in the press not as rape statistics, sexual predators or inept civil servants.

The 16 million South Africans receiving government grants don't give a flying rat's ass about the so called Secrecy Bill. They too have their own stories to tell of how their lives have changed for the better since the dawn of democracy.

News is changing

Behind these statistics are people who believe that Jacob Zuma is the right man to lead the ANC. They also believe that when Mandela goes, life will go on as usual. These are the people who form the bulk of the 11 millions South Africans who voted for the ANC four years ago. Of these 4500 converged in Mangaung recently and reaffirmed Zuma as their leader. We have to make peace with this reality. We can't be part-time democrats - support majority decisions only when it suits us.

In his diagnoses of the South African press, former editor of The Star and group editor-in-chief of Independent Newspapers South Africa, Peter Sullivan asked an uncomfortable question: "Why do we have such appalling newspapers?"

Sullivan hinted that perhaps the story being told by the South African newspapers is stale and irrelevant. He summed it up. "It's the bloody newspapers' fault with their silly preoccupation with Juju, Lady Gaga, rape, murder and President Zuma's next wife and his spear." He further asked: Are South African newspapers struggling financially because of incompetence and idiocy..."

Sullivan concluded by saying: "The ANC is now the voice of the people, elected to this position. Newspapers still talk for the people, but let's admit: in reality, only a fraction of them".