05 March 2002
From 10h20 tomorrow, 06 March 2001, the South African Communist Party (SACP)will make a submission to the Portfolio Committee in Parliament (Cape Town)on the Media Development and Diversity Agency Bill.
The full text of the SACP submission will be available from the SACP website (www.sacp.org.za) from 07 March 2001.
The SACP submission specifically calls for a statutory levy, based on a percentage of gross annual revenue,to be paid by private commercial media in order to fund the MDDA.
The SACP submission also argues that the MDDA Bill cannot narrowly focus on community media, whilst leaving the largely un-transformed media to the whims and moods of the private capitalist markets which have no other interests and obligations other than those of private profit. This means a government and community led process to introduce new forms of collective ownership and control of our media.
Linked to this is the issue of foreign ownership of our media. For example, the MDDA Draft Position Paper released in 2001 stated that Independent Newspapers and the Mail and Guardian are more than 50% foreign owned. As a result the question of who are they accountable to arises. Are they accountable to the South African public or their foreign capitalist owners? To what extent is this foreign ownership influencing their coverage of South Africa and Africa as a whole? Should we not be putting a limit on the extent of foreign ownership of our media?
The SACP submission also calls for a Media Transformation Summit which should be held in the next 18 months. This Summit must discuss and act on labour relations, affirmative action in the media industry, media ownership and control, the promotion and use of all South African languages in our media, the transformation of the Advertising Industry, public service obligations on all media, and the transformation and funding of the SABC.
CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information Publicity
South African Communist Party
Tel - 27 11 339-3621/2
Fax - 27 11 339-4244
Cell - 083 651 0271
Email - sacp1@wn.apc.org