No Need To Save The Press

SANDWICHED between Workers' Day on Sunday and May 4 (Cassinga Day) is May 3. It is the day media workers and all associated with freedom of expression pause to reflect on their freedom. I do the same.

This year will mark 20 years since the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom. It was in 1991 when Windhoek played host to a key conference on media freedom which did not only resonate in Namibia and Africa but around the world with similar historic documents on promoting independent and pluralistic media. It was later adopted by the Africa Union heads of State and governments.
The Windhoek Declaration is a statement of press freedom principles put together by African journalists and calls for free, independent and pluralistic media throughout the world. It also emphasised a free press is essential to democracy and a fundamental human right.
Some 20 years later Namibia has “recovered its former pre-eminent position” to top the southern African region on press freedom as indicated by last year's Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index rankings.
However, media freedom on the continent remains a far cry from the picture the declaration hoped for as many countries continue with their repressive activities against scribes at independent institutions while governments also continue to own some media houses.
This year’s theme is ‘21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers’ which signifies the new challenge facing the media with internet and the arrival of the digital revolution.
Online social networks have mushroomed over the past few years reshaping the media landscape and opening up information channels to many people.
With the recent Egyptian revolution, for instance, Twitter and Facebook helped the people communicate with the outside world. The two were also used during the earthquake in Japan to help communicate with the victims and their families.
Recently I also read about American colleges and universities who check prospective students’ Facebook and Twitter profiles before making an admission decision!
While the social networks have helped advance many causes in the process, some governments see it as a threat to their “stable democracies” and have attempted or continue to censor information.
Others have taken upon themselves to ‘save the press’ by setting up regulatory institutions and other forms of watchdogs. In public their role is to ‘help’ the media to maintain ethics but clandestinely some institutions, which we know, are mainly involved in monitoring media sources in a bid to curtail information.
Before Namibia’s Independence, the role of the fourth estate, for instance The Namibian newspaper, was particularly important for the ruling Swapo as it exposed the atrocities of the apartheid regime and helped inform those inside the country about what was happening outside.
The paper was always commended for standing for truth and defending the rights of the people.
The Namibian's operations depended a lot on investigative journalism of a kind that is now threatened by unwarranted telephone taps and economic sanctions by those who know very well what the paper stands for.
Those in power today talk about 'classified' information when priorly they depended on such information from media houses such as The Namibian before Independence.
They don't seem to get it that serious journalists do indeed deal with classified information and, after all, their job is to find out what government officials do not want revealed!
With this year's theme being '21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers', it is therefore an appropriate time to remind ourselves that the struggle for Namibia's Independence was not fought to turn the country into another police state and that truth can never be characterised as defamation.
Of course, it is a different story if the journalist gets it wrong or behaves in an unethical manner.
But there is definitely no need for governments to save the press.