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SA City Press in censorship-row with communist chief: ‘We will not bow for new gods…’

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Original Post Date: 2008-02-04 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: Adriana

Cape Town. January 4 2008 — “City Press” newspaper is standing firm against an boycot threat by the secretary-general of the SA communist party Blade Nzimande and the country’s trade-unionists.
http://www.news24.com/Images/Photos/20080202192857CityPress1.jpg

South Africa’s top communist exercises important power inside the ruling ANC’s national executive committee and last week wrote an ‘open letter’ to the owners of News24, in which he criticised City Press’ report about the internal divisions inside the ANC-executive and claiming that City Press ‘ ‘pro-Zuma stance’ was deliberately sowing discord among the black elitists running South Africa. He warned that ‘City Press would find it difficult to maintain a professional relationship with the new leaders’ if they continued in this manner.

Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi also said Nzimande's sentiments echoed a “deep-seated feeling” within the labour federation. “There were people in Cosatu who felt the newspaper should be boycotted and said some had even suggested they should march on City Press as they had under former editor Vusi Mona. But others felt a march would be a “waste of time”. Someone must take responsibility down the line. We are convinced that City Press is out and out to deal with us. It does not cover our stories, when it covers them it does in a factional way,” Vavi said.
http://www.news24.com/City_Press/News/0,,186-187_2263536,00.html

City Press editor Mathatha Tsedu responded to the communist’s open letter to News24 ‘s owners by saying that ‘if the newspaper had made any factual errors, complaints could always be lodged with the SA Press Council.However ‘in this case City Press stands by its reporting and disagrees with Nzimande’.

“Nzimande instead tried to intimidate the owners of this newspaper by trying to get them to fire the leading journalists at City Press.’

Tsedu also wrote of ‘a strong climate of intimidation against the news media in South Africa’, which was becoming so pervasive that ‘journalists are increasingly forced to use anonymous sources, because people fear reprisals.’

As an example of this intimidation, he described the recent case of a black soap-opera actress who was forced to make a public apology to the ANC after she had appeared as a guest-speaker at the Inkatha Freedom Party — or her acting career would have been finished.

“The irony is that Nzimande himself had complained that any opinions by opponents of pres. Thabo Mbeki were not being tolerated. Yet now he expects the owners of this newspaper to fire its leading journalists – otherwise the all-mighty ANC would launch a boycot against the newspaper…’

“When the apartheid-regime tortured journalists who wanted to write the truth, we fought back. When the United Democratic Front tried to stop us from covering stories about any other opposing organisations, the editors stood stead-fast against this.

“We are not going to bow for these new gods. We stand by our right to conduct our work ethically and professionally.If Nzimande has any complaints he can use the existing mechanisms. We stand by everything we wrote,’ Tsedu comments.

Freedom of Expression Institute director Jane Duncan said it was “deeply disturbing” that the letter was addressed to Media 24 managers/owners rather than the City Press editor himself – saying it implied that ‘Nzimande wanted management to interfere with the editorial content of the newspaper.’

“The unavoidable inference from Nzimande's letter is that he considers Tsedu to be the main problem and wants Media 24's managers to intervene either to bring Tsedu to heel, or even remove him.”

Mrs Dene Smuts, speaking for the Democratic Alliance, says the top communist’s letter to City Press ‘is an indication of how strongly the ANC is positioning itself against the Constitution and against the free flow of information”.

Source: http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2263981,00.html