
So on the one hand President Jacob Zuma keeps on telling us that the ANC is fully committed to media freedom,
SANEF and the ruling party have had a "robust but useful" discussion and have agreed (
to disagree) and continue holding ongoing discussions - yet on the other hand the Gauteng ANC's provincial general council is now calling for a media watchdog, to run in parallel with the proposed media appeals tribunal, to "regulate" newspapers, as reported by
Times Live? Is this really a step forward?
This week sees the
Gauteng launch of the Right2Know movement, an umbrella body of over 200 civil society organisations which is taking on the ANC-led government's Protection of Information Bill in its current format. The Chalsty Centre at Wits University's School of Law in Johannesburg will be the venue for the launch and an intense public information session this Wednesday, 15 September 2010, at 11.30am.
Remember to keep yourselves informed by monitoring our
#ZAmediafreedom Twitterfall and reading our
dedicated section on media freedom and make your voices heard now, before it is too late.
A luta continua!
Simone Puterman (
@SimoneBiz)
Managing editorPlease send all marketing and media news to marketingnews@bizcommunity.com and opinion pieces to contributors@bizcommunity.co. Responses to this column welcomed in our online editor's column archive.