Media transformation at the top of the agenda: Muthambi

 ·6 May 2016

Communication Minister Faith Muthambi says that media transformation is her department’s “flagship project” in 2016 and 2017, as media groups and government disagree on what the role of media in South Africa should be.

The minister was giving her budget vote speech for the 2016/17 financial year, and said that the government had established strategies and delivery targets based on the false premise that its relationship with media was a partnership.

Instead, Muthambi said, media houses have rather chosen to ignore events such as post-Cabinet briefings – where they could catch up on what government is doing – to focus on painting the government as corrupt and inept.

“It could also be argued that racist tendencies also play a role in the unrelenting attempts aimed at stigmatising a black government led by the African National Congress,” she said.

“It has now become common cause that the independence and professionalism of many journalists are now measured on how ruthless their reporting can be about this ANC-led Government.”

Muthambi said that this is why media transformation has now taken point in her department’s plans for the year, where it will address media ownership, as well as ownership of the printing press, distribution channels and regulatory bodies.

“Our media would rather focus scandalising government even if that means not getting all the facts right,” she said.

Muthambi has been calling for media reform since she took up office in 2014. At the time she was appointed to the department of communications, the minister said that her department would force media to transform like all other sectors of society.

“This government has a responsibility to make information accessible to all our people. Over the past 20 years, it has become clear that this cannot happen only at the mercy of the commercial media,” she said at the time.

In 2015, Muthambi called for the introduction of a government-controlled regulatory system in print media to “achieve the meaningful transformation agenda” of the country.

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