a The Media Report 2014 feature by Anton Harber. Journalists seldom choose journalism for the money. Some do it because they feel they can do public good, some because they like the access it gives them to the powerful. Some just love the excitement of news and a front-row seat in the making of history. Some want to be celebrity reporters. There are a host of reasons to do it, but few involve the hope of getting rich.
That is why there is such an independent spirit among most journalists. If someone is going to tell them what to write to serve their narrow interests, then they might as well cross the floor into public relations or corporate communications and get much more money for it.
But what do we mean by editorial independence, a phrase often used and abused? It is not the right to do as one likes, as one generally has to work within institutions which need to serve readers, advertisers and owners. It cannot be that one is unaccountable or that newsrooms are free-for-alls.
News values
What it generally means is that, within the parameters of an institution, the journalist is free to make a decision based primarily on what are often called news values, the notion that the decision of what to publish or broadcast is based first on what their audience needs, wants or should know.
When a reporter fears they will lose their job if they show crowds booing President Jacob Zuma or – as I am told happened at the SABC early this year – if they show ANC supporters wielding bricks against marching rivals, then there are party-political interests overriding news judgements.
When newspaper editors feel they have to run yet another comically flattering interview with their new company chair – as appears to be the case at the Independent newspaper group – then they are serving narrow financial interests above the interests of their publics. They start to feel like corporate communicators, a field governed by a different set of values and ethics.
Editorial independence can be complicated. Owners have the right to hire and fire editors and that is how they set the parameters and values of the organisation. They choose people they trust to produce the kind of product they want. A wise owner then lets the editor get on with it, knowing that to keep their integrity the editor will have to make some decisions which irritate the owner.
Maintaining balance
It is when an owner appears to fire an editor for making a news judgement, or imposes their personal interests on news decisions – as appeared to be the case with Alide Dasnois and others at the Cape Times — that there is an outcry. Editors have to maintain a fine balance between the interests of the public, their readers, their advertisers and their owners. Get that balance wrong — such as if your owner interferes to tip the scales — and you lose credibility and standing, and soon you lose audience and advertisers.
At Independent newspapers, a new phenomenon is happening now. To achieve her goal of breaking the control of what she calls “a small but very privileged and racially-definable minority”, Group Executive Editor Karima Brown is centralising head-office control of opinion and political coverage at the group’s 16 titles under herself and Group OpEd and Analysis Editor Vukani Mde. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on audiences and advertisers, the more so because some of the early victims of her campaign appear to include some of the more progressive voices in the group.
At a time when editorial independence is under threat from politicians, advertisers and owners, it is worth reminding ourselves why we value it. I would boil it down to one reason: it produces better, more interesting, impactful and useful journalism.
Homogenous newsrooms are run by fear and control, conditions inimical to interesting reporting. The best newsrooms are places of argument, debate and contestation between different viewpoints fighting for space and attention, where journalists’ own colleagues are testing their accuracy and fairness, and they are encouraged to be creative, imaginative and disruptive. This is the spirit of independence.
That is why the SABC, for all its resources, struggles to produce good journalism. And why we worry about the future of journalism at Independent newspapers.
Anton Harber is the Caxton Professor of Journalism and Media Studies and director of the Journalism Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Harber has had a long career in journalism, media management and the training of journalists. Read his blog at www.theharbinger.co.za.
This feature first ran in The Media Report 2014, which is published by Ornico with MarkLives.com as its official media partner. Read or download the full magazine via Issuu.
Visuals used are licensed through Creative Commons. Attribution and gratitude go to: Reporters Without Borders and the Give Dictators The Finger campaign; r2hox, who documents urban and street art; Rebel Mouse Digital artist, Surian Soosay; Khalid Albaih, founder of Freestock.ca; Nicolas Raymond, print buyer, and photographer, Karen Roe; photographer SandisterTei; and author, scientist and occasional photographer, Duncan Hull.
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