Bringing sexy back to news values and their impact on democracy

In this article Andiswa Makanda problemitises news values adopted by private media and how these serve as a threat to democracy.

This is in response to an article “A problem of sex in news” written by Avusa’s public editor Thabo Leshilo this weekend (03/10/2010). While I agree with most of the points made by him about the print media, I argue that the newspaper itself must practice what it preaches. It is important to problematise print news values and ethics and in the article mentioned earlier Leshilo problematises news values. However the newspaper that he writes for practices what he condemns. Leshilo was responding to an article written by Jackie Dugard in the Business Day (a newspaper under the flagship of Avusa). I commend them for such an initiative of problematising print news values and for me this signals a level of initiative from media workers to transform the content of private newspapers. However it would seem that the trend is bringing sexy to quality news coverage.

Dugard argues that the print media should not go up in arms only when their colleagues have been violently and unfairly arrested, when they do not toe the line with government. Poor people should also be given prominence in the print news when they have been unfairly arrested for holding the government accountable. She argues that poor people are also subjected to the same treatment that The Sunday Times‘ Mzilikazi wa Afrika was subjected too. I commend her for raising this issue, but it is unfortunate that the news values adopted by many print news media – including broadcast news media – do not allow for poor people’s encounters with government officials to be given prominence. The only time that poor people are given prominence is during service delivery protests. Even then the poor people are given negative reporting and represented as the perpetrators of chaos and violence, and as the cancer in the running of the economy. What one finds is that private media only protect their own interests versus the interests of the poor.

With Mzilikazi’s case, the private print industry were in solidarity against the arrest of Mzilikazi and reported so much on how undemocratic the arrest was and that this is a threat to media democracy and democracy as a whole. Are the arrests of the poor not a signal of a threat to democracy? Why is it that when it is their own freedom of expression that is threatened do they go up in arms? If the print media are truly in the public interest as they claim, then they should too go up in arms when the poor people are unfairly treated by the bourgeois class including government and the owners of the companies that advertise in their newspapers.

It is unfortunate that at the moment it does not seem likely that the private print industry would go up in arms for the poor. The print media argue that they need freedom of the press in order to safeguard the needs of the poor. They also argue that freedom of the press is the key to democracy. It is Steven Friedman’s question, “Why do the media not use their freedom to give us information?” that hit home. He could have also asked why do the media not use this freedom that they safeguard so much to meet the interests of the poor in transforming their situation to better living standards so that democracy in all its essence is realized? Leshilo argues that insufficient resources make it impossible to cover each and every story and more importantly these stories are not sexy enough for coverage. The question I pose is sexy to whom; and sexy for what? Do the readers of these newspapers really find the coverage of the poor unsexy and the police commissioner General Beki Cele’s wedding sexier? Leshilo then argues “With profit as their primary motive rather than good journalism, they are less likely to tackle major, controversial issues such as the looting of state coffers and the exploitation of workers and the poor. That might see them being sued or losing advertising” (Leshilo, Sunday Times, 03/10/2010).

It is also worth noting that Leshilo argues how “disheartening” it is when quality newspapers succumb to cheap journalism such as that of the tabloids. He further argues that tabloids require a different mind set and they do well at what they do because they and their readers do not expect much from each other. I commend Leshilo for coming out and expressing his view. Even The Sunday Times that he works for has succumbed to tabloidization of the newspaper by placing a huge photograph of Cele and his bride on its front page. One wonders whether The Sunday Times truly believes that it is this humongous picture that will drive up readership. Do they not trust that its readers will remain loyal to the paper based on quality journalism? I am hoping that quality newspapers do not shift their focus and try adopt tabloid news values because of their success because this will only lead to their own demise as people may look for alternative news sources which do not require sexy back to increase readership and profits.

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