It is time advertisers — particularly in the retail sector — took responsibility for the social and political implications of their media-buying decisions.
Why are major SA retail chains willing to continue giving public support to the country’s rogue news outlets as they spread disinformation and undermine our journalism, our democracy and our economy?
Around the world democracies are struggling against the tide of malicious and often dangerous disinformation, particularly through social media. The best counter to this phenomenon is to build and sustain credible and trustworthy journalism that subjects itself to rules of practice and a code of ethics, governed by self-regulation, such as our own Press Council and ombuds system.
But this is undermined by media outlets that go rogue, abandoning and undermining the voluntary system and jumping on the disinformation bandwagon for the sake of profits.
The best example is Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News in the US, which has played a key role in promoting the false notion that President Joe Biden’s election was not legitimate, and other outlandish and unsupported conspiracy theories now so widespread that democracy itself is threatened. A number of big advertisers have moved away from Fox News for fear of being tainted by association, though the effect is limited as the channel’s main source of revenue by a long way is cable subscriptions rather than advertising.
In recent weeks we saw major US advertisers withhold patronage from Twitter when new owner Elon Musk threatened to stop monitoring disinformation and hate speech on the platform. He had to quickly change tack — and join the push against the propagation of hate and maliciously false information.
In SA we have a major media group that has abandoned the industry self-regulation system in favour of its own fake and dysfunctional internal system. That group, Dr Iqbal Survé’s Independent Media, was responsible for the ludicrous and embarrassing “Tembisa 10” story.
Its companywide strategy to undermine President Cyril Ramaphosa, called Operation Hlanza, was leaked by rival media a few weeks ago. There is nothing wrong with a news group taking a view on presidential elections, but the document made it clear that the motivation had little to do with Ramaphosa’s views or performance, and was entirely about the personal fortunes of its owner.
Most worryingly, it was clear that it was prepared to abandon all attempts at journalistic integrity in pursuit of his corporate interests. Since then the group’s 16 front and home pages have relentlessly attacked Ramaphosa, day after day, often on the most flimsy, hyped-up information. In contrast, they have souped up their choice of rival, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Personal interests have overwhelmed public interest.
These newspapers’ pages are packed with advertising, mostly from the big national retail chains. I raise this issue with some trepidation. Journalists do not like to encourage advertisers to exert their influence over editorial content. Bodies like the SA National Editors’ Forum have stayed silent on the role of advertisers in supporting and sustaining rogue outlets, rendering largely ineffective their drive against such journalism and its peddling of disinformation.
There is good reason to be cautious. The ANC under Thabo Mbeki used the government’s formidable advertising power to threaten critical newspapers such as the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian in the early 2000s, and we railed against such an abuse of state power and taxpayers’ money. In countries like Botswana and Eswatini we have seen governments abuse their advertising spend to enforce self-censorship on its critics. I would never suggest that advertisers only appear in outlets that they agree with, or use their advertising spend to further their own political causes.
But one has to ask why advertisers want to be associated with — and give oxygen to — purveyors of dangerous disinformation that can undermine the country’s faith in democracy and openness. One has to wonder why they are prepared to put short-term interests above the long-term health of our information system and stand alongside those who would undermine our democracy.
The business community should be reminded how disinformation harms the economy by undermining good governance, tainting the information we rely on to make business and economic decisions, and often spreading social and political division.
We should be promoting a simple idea across our society, but especially in business: show your support for the self-regulatory systems to monitor media practice and ethics and throw your weight behind the fight against disinformation. Walk away from journalists and media outlets that do not subscribe to credible, independent self-regulatory systems and practices, such as the Press Council or its equivalents.
I don’t want to close or even harm those outlets. I want them to play by the rules of the game.
• Harber is executive director of the Campaign for Free Expression and Caxton professor of journalism at Wits University.
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