GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Politics and the press — when journalists become the story
This will go down as the year in which the media became the news and had its objectivity questioned — often because the Guptas’ machinations sucked many journalists into the political swamp
As the year starts drawing to a close, it becomes possible to reflect on some of the trends and patterns that have defined current affairs. One of the more significant of these concerns the relationship between politics and the press. No journalist should become the news. It is not entirely unavoidable but, rather, it is best practice. When one becomes enmeshed in the news, the ability to report on it dispassionately is compromised and, inevitably, one’s personal circumstances tend to narrow perspective. This invisible bulwark has been eroded this year — for the most part unintentionally, but unquestionably so, none the less. Across the board, with regard to media houses generally and to their individual staff, the crisis that consumes SA has found its way into newsrooms. For some time now these two worlds have begun to merge (the ANC’s ever-present suggestion of a media appeals tribunal is one of the prime movers). Only, in 2017 this conflation has begun to peak.The SABC is perhaps...
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