SACP Eastern Cape on media houses embedded in the agenda of the opposition
21 November 2013
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape Province has noted with great concern the recent suspension of the Sunday Times Senior Parliamentary Editor and the former Daily Dispatch Editor, Brendon Boyle over his links with the Democratic Alliance (DA) and that he appeared on the DA list to Parliament. Brendan Boyle has presided over the content of what is to be reported by the Sunday Times whilst a DA activist, serving the interests of the DA and those of capital.
As if the above was not enough, the Senior Municipal Reporter at Die Burger and the Former crime reporter at the Herald, Helga Van Staden is to be sworn in as the DA councillor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality. She is to be sworn in to a council in which she has been reporting about as a journalist, who is supposed to be fair, objective and balanced in reporting, unfortunately that cannot be said to have been the case when she has been a DA activist.
As the SACP, we believe that this explains the consistent anti-government posture taken by the Times Media Group towards the African National Congress led alliance and our government. Over the past decade commercial media has positioned itself as opposition to the peoples government and progressive organs of the people, in particular the tripartite alliance and its leaders. With these newly revealed DA activism in many media houses, the question is, should we treat the opinions carried in these newspapers as genuine and neutral opinions or party political campaigning.
This DA journalism explains the consistent neoliberal offensive towards the peoples government and progressive organs of the people, in particular tripartite alliance by media houses in which DA activists like Brendan Boyle preside over news content.
It is our firm view that there are still DA activists in these media houses who are not yet exposed except by their unbalanced and unfair reporting which is mainly oppositionist as characterised partly in opinion columns. This would further explain why there is not a single newspaper in this country that is prepared to report about what the ANC led government has done since the dawn of democracy despite the good work that has been done. By and large almost all of them with some few exceptions would prefer to focus on the negatives. For they represent the interests of their masters in the form of the DA and monopoly capital and racially biased interests.
We call upon the people of our country to see these oppositionist media houses for what they are: DA and Capitalist watch dogs who want to project our government and its leadership as a bunch of corrupt individuals.
We have an undisputed history as the South African Communists of having fought for freedom of the press and progressive journalism, it is in this context that we are severely concerned by what is happening in these media houses.
Issued by SACP Eastern Cape
Contact:
Siyabonga Mdodi
SACP Provincial Spokesperson
083 3588 070
