The media mafia, by Sandile Memela

The media mafia

15 June 2011
Sandile Memela, M&G ThoughtLeader

I don’t know when it hit me but it was during my first year as a young reporter in 1985 when I had just joined City Press newspaper fresh from studying communications at Fort Hare University.

That was when I noticed that newspaper journalists, sub-editors, columnists and editors in every publication have, unavoidably, a particular political agenda.

Maybe it was how the paper identified and selected the high-flying personalities whose businesses had to be covered. Or maybe it was the angle adopted in covering a particular social responsibility donation to the community by a major corporation. Or it might have been the headline scripted for a particular story. I am not sure. But the more I got insight and understanding into how the news business network operates, I noticed that the news guys always had a specific political agenda.

Oh, let me state it categorically: there is no objectivity in journalism. I mean, the news business is a commercial enterprise with a particular political agenda to make profits. It is not to expose what is loosely called the truth or provide information and knowledge that will empower the mind of consumers.

In between attending meetings with corporate management and sitting in long sessions with cut-throat bean counters or accountants, the news guys and dolls have to put up a brave face of being committed to pursuit of the truth.

Most of the time, senior journalists and editors are monumentally self-delusional people who believe their own lies. Of course, they project the impression of being serious agents of change who influence developments and trends in society, especially at a political and economic level. But this is self-deception.

Most journalists are nothing but mere reporters who do as they are told and write stories that repeat everything said by so-called movers and shakers — without question.

This would sound like a contradictory statement except that people who know how the media operates will tell you that it is only a handful of guys and dolls in a news organisation that call the shots.

In fact, they operate like a mafia.

Unlike a rose, ‘kaffir’ does NOT smell the same to black and white; by Sandile Memela

Does the use of the word “Kaffir” damage the white refugee mission?
Is saying “Kaffir” something that most white-guilt whites still need to discuss with their psychiatrists?
Who or What is a “Kaffir”? ** Do “Kaffirs” exist? ** If “Kaffirs” do exist, why is there a problem with calling a person whose behaviour fits the relevant description for the definition of “Kaffir”; a “Kaffir”?

Join the White Refugee Conversation About Race/Racism:
Do “Kaffirs” Exist? Debate....