The abuse of journalists has been well documented. Ed Herbst spoke about the treatment many SABC journos experienced under then boss Snuki Zikalala, while the spotlight is back on the state broadcaster as COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng wields the axe against eight âunruly staffersâ. Donwald Pressly also spoke about the treatment of Independent Media workers, following the recent dismissal of Alide Dasnois. Angus Begg, former Carte Blanche producer and freelance columnist, fans the flames, calling for fair and ethical treatment in both state and private media newsrooms. â Stuart Lowman
By Angus Begg*
As an experienced, recognised journalist I was paid R2 a word* when writing the above weekly column roughly about 13 years ago. It was for The Weekender, the weekend edition of South Africa’s premier business news daily, Business Day, arguably the most respected independent newspaper voice in the country, owned by Johnnic Media or Times Media Ltd at the time**.
Writing for the same publishing house, I don’t think the rate is much more today.
The Weekender was the ‘baby’ of the then editor, Peter Bruce, a respectable media man of good ethics who would’ve paid more if he could have; but half his job was managing a given budget, and I remember from the odd telephone conversation that he was frustrated by the financial pressures on the title. One or two floors above Peter’s office, in the company’s Rosebank, Joburg HQ the country’s largest selling Sunday newspaper was the Sunday Times (I presume it still is), and I think they paid me a little more, but not more than R3 per word.
It’s something I expected at the state-run SABC, getting R200 for a 4-minute weekly travel-cum-socio-political column I produced and presented on AM Live with Jon Perlman. I had to travel places to capture the content, write a script, edit the interviews, record my voicer and put it together in the studio. As that loveable and legendary broadcaster Paddy O’Byrne told me once in the SABC’s Auckland Park headquarters, when discussing the financial challenges of working for the organisation; ‘I sometimes think of radio as a calling’.
That was the romantic notion I think many of us settled into, even accepted.
Like thousands of individual creatives out there I became a whore to the industry. It’s largely accepted, almost romanticised by outsiders as part of the ‘deal’ of being a journalist, creative or ‘media worker’. That we are secondary to the accountants who run the place, who arrange the mergers and retrench the writers who attract the readership that buy the papers and magazines – in the process doubling and tripling the work load of those who remain. Am I weird, or is there something absurd in that (Iâm not talking blogs here, thatâs another story)?
And is it not perhaps ironic that media houses that publish stories about abuse and wrongdoing across the news spectrum are guilty of perpetrating the very same ills?
I’m not a junior, and as a journalist I have luckily garnered the odd global recognition, a CNN award a shortlisting for last yearâs International Travel Writer of the Year among them. But when I have to grovel to earn a living wage for providing a quality service, I can’t help feeling that there is something patently wrong with ‘the system’. It’s not just the traditional publishing houses; I know first-hand that senior staff at places like Primedia face exactly the same problem.
Conducting a good interview that draws out compelling response, asking questions that need to be asked, writing well, not being beholden to an interest group*** and just being curious.; Iâd say these qualities are in short supply in the South African media environment. Given the pressures on said environment, as we once again (who would’ve thought?!) battle a devious state short on moral principle, such qualities are essential. Unfortunately the juniorisation of newsrooms, by definition, does not allow for them.
Former Business Report (Independent Newspapers) Cape Town bureau chief Donwald Pressly wrote in Biznews recently about private-sector responsibility in the media: “The juniorisation and cheapening of journalism is also a threat to press freedom and freedom of expression”. In other words, to achieve their goal of maintaining profits, big media houses are willing to offer the public an inferior product, which is inevitable if you trade experience, accumulated skills and knowledge for enthusiasm (with inevitable potential attached) and overwork your remaining staff.
Whether Independent Newspapers, Times Media or Media 24, I suggest that they take a step back and walk their talk . I’d imagine fair and ethical treatment of media should be right up #LeadSA’s street.
* at different times of the week, thanks to our wildly fluctuating exchange rate, that’s about 1 pence, maybe US 15 cents.
** please forgive any inaccuracies regarding ownership; the ongoing mergers, unbundling and re-bundling – all incidentally designed to enrich a few while sacking many – are hard to keep track of, and as I’m hunting work I have no time to pore through their records.
*** just kidding, we know that won’t happen in this tiny incestuous and monopolistic pond.
- Angus Begg,former Carte Blanche producer and freelance columnist, now operating www.africanstorybook.com.
