One can't be a media worker and not have a strong opinion on the Deon Maas/Rapport issue. We're giving this industry a chance to vote on this at our weekly poll: Should Rapport have fired columnist Deon Maas?. But for me this is not only about press freedom or freedom of speech or even freedom of religion. It's about editorial integrity first. Whatever the content of the column, the fact is that Rapport did publish it and should have had the courage of its convictions to weather the controversy that followed. What is an issue for press freedom is that an editor bowed to admitted "commercial pressure" and threatened action from detractors over the 'offending' column which made reference to Satanism in the context of tolerance, by the now sacked columnist, Deon Maas. What happened to the principles of editorial integrity? An editor is the gatekeeper of press freedom and by implication freedom of speech. And if the decision to publish the column in the first place was the wrong one by Rapport given its conservative readership, then admit that. But it did give Maas a voice and published the column with vivid graphics so some thought process went into the decision. Then it dumped him when pressure mounted. What kind of a message does this send to those who would see the media have a lot less freedom than it currently enjoys in our fledgling democracy? How is this different from the Governments' alleged threat to pull advertising from the Sunday Times over its critical stance or any advertiser's threat to cancel ads over content they don't like? What message does this send to the broader public - that media content can be manipulated if the pressure is great enough? How badly handled by a venerate media organisation that should know better!
It's all about context! Louise Marsland, editor@bizcommunity.co. Marketing news: marketingnews@bizcommunity.co. Responses to this column welcomed on our blog.