PREMIER'S ADDRESS

Chairperson
Ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for the opportunity you have given us to address you on this important event in your calendar and are pleased to convey our sincere congratulations on the occasion of your summit.

It is not often that a representative of government is called upon to speak at a function such as this one. But this reflects the fact that though your Forum and us in government are in different and seemingly contradictory terrain, we are all activists for freedom of expression.

The fact that you are gathered here today to sharpen your journalistic skills - especially your skills as investigative journalists - is an indication of the importance you attach to your role as communicators.

It is also a fitting tribute, I believe, that we meet not far from where one of the country's greatest journalists, the late Henry Nxumalo, brought us the infamous Bethal Potato Scandal stories.

It was through Nxumalo's appreciation of his humane social mission and his keen grasp of complex social realities that made the eivilis'ed world sit up and wonder how one human being can treat another in such a barbaric and inhuman manner.

Ladies and gentlemen, it was because Nxumalo was prepared to face danger and not flinch that he was able to come out of those farms alive. Because he had guts, he got the story. The glory? I am not so sure.

We owe it people like Nxumalo, Nat Nakasa, Kitt Katzin, Can Themba, Laurence Gandar, Sol Plaatjie Hennie Serfontein and many others whose powerful pens spewed the revolt and sense of rebellion from their powerful minds that we can sit here today as South Africans - black and white and talk about press freedom and other issues.

To all these and more, we owe gratitude not only for the fact of freedom; not only for helping to define the content of that freedom - but also for laying the foundation of South Africa's tradition of journalism.

As to whether we are worthy heirs to their toil and worthy claimants to their mantle is a question that we need to answer in day-to-day work; in the media, in government and NGOS.

As we grapple with the question of whether we are worthy claimants to their crown, let us pose a few hard questions.

o Do we perceive our role as journalists as simply to keep in check the power of government, to hold the leadership accountable?

o Can we honestly say that YES we write about the brutal and senseless murder of a farmer with the same fervor we would the barbaric torture and beating to death of a farm Tabourer?

º Do we attach the same importance to corruption in government as we would to white collar crime where some company boss steals millions of shareholders' money?

o Does the poor, unemployed and often illiterate woman in a squatter camp have the same access to us as journalist as would a wealthy kugel in Johannesburg's northern suburbs?

Thes e are questions we need to answer honestly if we are to begin the task of empowering our communities.

Our need for democratisation and transformation arises out of the fact that, for some time to come, our society will continue to live with the many legacies of Apartheid and colonial domination, against which we must continue to mobiiise all the forces of democracy.

Secondly, there is a recognition that for the massive project of social transformation, the RDP, to succeed, there should be mass involvement. This in turn requires that people should be informed about events and phenomena; and further, one of the major players in this regard is the government.

Thirdly, everyone agrees that we should engender the culture of openness within society as a whole- and the state has a huge responsibility to avail information in its hands. This is the spirit guiding the Open Democracy Bill now in parliament.

Fourthly, freedom of expression and the right to information also imply the right to speak and even the right to be heard. In other words, we should seek mechanisms for those who are disadvantaged to acquire the wherewithal to air their views.

They should not merely be recipients of the views of others; but they should also have the right to impart their own information and ideas. Information about social phenomena should not be the preserve of the rich and the powerful.

All these elements of national consensus on matters of media freedom are principles on which all who profess to support even a modicum of democracy will be at one. But the principles in themselves are insufficient- they are mere declarations of good intentions.

Indeed the realisation of the imperative of freedom of expression in its true meaning requires that we change the relation of citizens to the means of dissemination of news, views and comment. We have to reconfigure property relations as they pertain to the means of communications.

Is freedom of expression possible in a situation in which virtually all dailies and weeklies and possibly most of the local papers and knock- and-drops are in the hands of a few?

Is rational discourse possible where management, senior positions in newsrooms and other positions of influence are occupied mainly by white males- with virtually a similar upbringing, culture, and perhaps politics and army service!

Unfortunately, even in instances where attempts are made at diversifying the newsrooms, promotion of blacks and women easily becomes co-option into the dominant culture.

Beyond that, training on what constitutes news and the methodology of analysis fits into the paradigm of the establishment.

My appeal to you today is to ensure that you engender in your members a culture of desisting from peddling untruths. Inculcate in them a sense of being more rigorous in checking facts.

Without this, we shall find ourselves accepting as fact a report that I arrived late at a dinner in Witbank simply because a certain influential person says so. No phone calls to the organisers of the conference, the mayor or some credible members of the business community in Witbank to check the facts.

Without this we shall accept as journalistic license a " timeless" TV news report about a baby who died in Mpumalanga because of problems at a clinic- "timeless" but deliberately chosen to be broadcast on 27 April, South Africa Freedom Day.

However, for its own credibility, and in order to be at the forefront of determining the agenda for change and not against change, the media need to shape up!
May your deliberations be a success.

I thank you.