The alternative press, which contributed so much to the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s; found itself unprepared for a new role in the freer media environment after the lifting of the State of Emergency in February 1990. P Eric, Louw, and Keyan Tomaselli report on the financial, organisational and political difficulties now threatening the existence of the alternative press in South Africa

Louw, Paul Eric.

Tomaselli, Keyan Gray.

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18 GROUP MEDIA JOURNAL The 1990 reforms and the alternative media in South Africa P Eric Loow and Keyan Tomaselli The alternative press, which contributed so much to the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s; found itseljunpreparedfor a new role in the freer media environment after the lifting of the State of Emergency in February 1990. P Eric Louw and Keyan Tomaselli report on the financial, organisa-tional and political difficulties now threatening the existence of the alter-native press in South Africa. President F W de Klerk's Opening Ad-dress to Parliament on 2 February 1990 radically transformed South African (SA) politics. The government unbann-ed the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan African Congress (PAC), and the SA Communist Party (SACP). It lifted the State of Emergen-cy which had been in place since 1986. The government thus lifted the bulk of media censorship. For the alternative presses, De Klerk's actions should have signalled the beginning of a growth period in a much freer environment. Sad-ly. however, these presses became victims of a fundamentally altered context for which they were largely ill- prepared. At the beginning of 1990, the ANC, largely through the work of the United Democratic Front (UDF), had secured the largest constituency in the country, and alternative press support. Thus most analysts predicted that SA's political future would be ANC dominated. Though the National Party (NP) govern-ment's public image had dramatically im-proved both in SA and internationally, this Party had still to shake off the legacy of apartheid. The other players, both within and outside of Parliament, had neither the support nor the power of either the NP or ANC. During 1990, however, the political landscape was radically transformed by an extraordinary shake-down of the con-tending parties. By mid-1991, De Klerk's reformed NP was the closest it had ever been to securing a workable formula for entrenching its 'white' constituency in power (albeit in a 'multi - racial' guise). In contrast, the ANC, despite the massive size of its support, had failed to organise either itself or its constituency. By mid-1991, the alternative press was in serious financial trouble as a result of the withdrawal of subsidies by foreign governments and churches. The NP also proved very skillful in outmanoeuvering the ANC by 'releasing' reform in stages. The political agenda thus remained under the control of the ruling hegemony which drew the liberal English language press 'For the alternative presses, De Klerk's actions should have signalled the beginning of a growth period in a much freer environment. Sadly, however, these presses became victims of a fundamentally altered context for which they were largely ill-prepared.' into its reformist political project. This was compounded by the ANC's inabili-ty to effectively mobilise the issues which had driven the UDP to success in the previous decade. This ANC weakness translated into a NP strength. The 18 months following De Klerk's reform announcement saw the systematic weakening of the positions of both the ANC and its alternative press allies. How to organisationally integrate the ANC, MOM (Mass Democratic Movement) and SACP proved difficult. COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), in particular, began to distance itself from the 'politicians'. Unionists argued that an independent labour move-ment would serve its socialist aims more effectively than direct involvement in an ANC-dominated alliance. Further, UDF activists were often excluded from posi-tions reserved for returning exiles in the new ANC structure internal to the coun-try. This proved costly because the former exiles brought with them neither the constituency - building skills nor the in-ternal support so painstakingly developed by UDF organisers between 1983 and 1989. Not surprisingly then, the 1,600 delegates (representing grassroots senti-ment) at the ANC's December 1990 Con-sultative Conference, expressed concern that the existing ANC leadership was 'getting it wrong'. In the wake of the reforms, the ANC experienced enormous difficulties in developing mechanisms for com-municating with, and organising its potential constituency, and for com-municating to other constituencies. A number of factors gave rise to this. First, the ANC's constituency and the political structures failed to adjust from a 'libera-tion struggle' to a new style of politics ap-propriate to 'normal' and open political interaction. Further, sections of the ANC's constituency appeared to be beyond control. This was not only an ANC problem. Socially psychopathic groups and individuals crossing all races and political positions were bred by a decade of brutal civil war. Black townships, youth in particular, were highly radicalised, alienated from all authority, and prone to extreme elements within the military and police who wanted to sabotage reform, consistently undermined peace talks between the war-ring factions{l}. A sad reflection on many alternative publications was their failure to critique the ANC's difficulty in adjusting to the post-reform era. Only the social democrat press, Weekly Mail and Vrye Weekblad, and left wing Work in Pro-gress, tried to systematically tackle this GROUP MEDIA JOURNAL sensitive issue. Secondly, by losing the 'image game', through a refusal to speak to the political centre through tactical use of appropriate discourse and choice of media, the ANC lost much middle ground support. This support had been forged during the 1980s to a Congress position by UDP activists. The failure of the alternative and left commercial presses like South and New African to build up a large readership base by 1990 meant that it was unable to assist the ANC to reach an audience of major significance. The readers reached were, in any case, the 'already converted'. But eventually this was the only media the ANC could rely upon. This was because during the first year of its unban-ning the Congress alienated whatever support it might have had within the mainstream liberal press through, amongst other things, erratic and often extremely poor press relations. The result was that most South Africans continued to see the world only through the mainstream press and/or state broad-casting reports. To make matters worse, the mainstream press, through domestic and international news agencies, fed ' stories critical of the ANC to the overseas media. By squandering the image game at home, the ANC also lost credibility in the West. Since the alternative press, in turn, relied on Western funding to operate, the loss of prestige suffered by the Left only served to further curtail sur-vival possibilities. . Thirdly, following the termination of funding by both the Western and Eastern blocs, the ANC experienced enormous problems funding its organisational pro-grammes. This was a serious blow because none of the alternative papers had developed either effective manage-ment skills or financial self-sufficiency. All had remained dependent on donor charity through worldwide opposition to apartheid. Further, the Church was also becoming less keen to fund 'alternatives' because it now saw apartheid as a policy of the past. Even the most viable of the alternatives, the Weekly Mail, ran into serious trouble because of the ill- fated attempt to launch the Daily Mail in mid-1990(2J. Only UmAfrika, whose financial position had improved dramatically by 1990, and whose raison d'etre was not solely political, seemed set to survive the epoch of the 80s. The threat of funding being cut off, plus the government's outmanoeuvering the ANC, produced sufficient demoralisation' in 'alternative newsrooms' to cause some attrition in staff. Ultimately, it seems the alternative press was a 1980s phenomenon. It was a 'The Church was also becoming less keen to fund 'alternatives' because it now saw apartheid as a policy of the past.' press born of the popular (UDF) phase of the struggle against apartheid. It serv-ed this struggle well, but ironically the . success of this struggle brought about a reformed South Africa that no longer ap-peared to have a place for the alternative press. Its effective time ran from the birth of Cape Town's Grassroots in 1980 to De Klerk's February 1990 speech. Once real fundamental reform was set in motion, the raison d'elre of the alternative press was effectively curtailed. De Klerk's February 1991 Opening Address to 19 Parliament simply confirmed the fact that the end of an era had been reached. Max du Preez, editor of the Vrye Weekblad, summed up the 'demise' of this press genre during an SABC inter-view dealing with the transformation of Vrye Weeklblad from an Afrikaans alter-native newspaper into a bilingual magazine. He said: 'It is yesterday's cause to be an alternative newspaper' .• NarES (1) R E Tomaselli. 'Media Images of South African Violence: South Africa's "Hidden Hand"', Covert Action No 36 (1991), 22-26. (2) H Grange, 'Why did the Daily Mail fold?' The Journalist, (November 1990) pp6-7. This article is a modified pre-publication extract from Tomaselli KG and Louw PE, 1991: 'The Alternative Press in South Africa; to be published by James Cur-rey, London. The book will be available from James Currey, 54b Thornhill Square, London N1 IDE, England. Keyan Tomaselli is director of tbe Contem-porary Cultural Studies Unit at tbe Universi-ty of Natal in Durban, South Africa. P Eric l.ouw is lecturer at tbe Unit. Vatican launches information service The Vatican has launched its own news service, the Vatican Information Service (VIS). Subscribers to VIS can call up in-formation by computer or have it faxed to them. The daily three-page news bulletin is produced in English and Spanish '-and further translations are planned. VIS lists the people who have had an audience with the Pope, the names of new bishops, and summaries of papal ad-dresses. Officially introduced on 25 May 1991, rumours had been circulating about the new service for months. There is much speculation about why the Vatican has introduced the new ser-vice. One reason given is that the Vatican wishes to transmit up to date, reliable in-formation on papal addresses and ac-tivities to bishops throughout the world, not only to keep them informed, but to help them react critically and effectively to local press reports on the Vatican. Not every bishop can listen to Radio Vatican and the Osservatore Romano is only delivered days after publication to Mozambique or the Fiji Islands. VIS comes onto the market at a time when Vatican. prelates are becoming in-creasingly annoyed at the aspects of papal speeches picked up by both the Italian and foreign media. But however strong their faith and loyalty to the Church, VIS editors have the same problems in seeking objectivi-ty as their colleagues outside the Vatican: they also have to choose what to focus on and how to organise it into a short, comprehensible and correct article. In end effect, VIS is a Vatican PR mouthpiece and is not likely to replace the work of secular or Church media. VIS director is Vatican press spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. The office manager is Italian/Argentinian Pietro Vrunori, who is assisted by two editors: Fernando Monge Sanchez for Spanish and Joan Lewis for English. Based on KNA report 

The 1990 reforms and the alternative media in South Africa.

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The 1990 reforms and the alternative media in South Africa.

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