Strange bedfellows with the same media paranoia
by Bryan Rostron
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
It’s a syndrome common to governments in power for a long time and which begin to run out of steam: they feel embattled, even persecuted. And so, especially if there is no real opposition, they look for someone else to blame. The easiest scapegoat – apart from picking on minorities – goes under that convenient catchall label “the media”.
The Protection of Information Bill and proposed media tribunal, currently before the South African Parliament, has been widely denounced here as an attempt to introduce apartheid-style censorship. Yet one important aspect has gone unremarked: the “ruling fatigue” syndrome. Defending this outrageous proposal, African National Congress apologists tend to sound as if they do not really feel that they are in power.
On the one hand “the media”, meaning mostly newspapers, is dismissed as the cartel of a tiny, self-interested minority; on the other hand, there is the contradictory inference that it is not failed ANC economic policies or rampant corruption that has led to massive strikes or violent protests. No, somehow it’s the bloody media – either white controlled or fronted by black dupes – that has riled up the masses.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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