Media Monday - hot topics and topics that make us hopping mad! 26 September 2011

Posted: 26 September 2011 | News - Newsletter | Categories: Children, Media Freedom and Performance

Here is what’s on the menu this Media Monday:

·         SABC asks for more public ‘moola’

·         A look back at Media Freedom Week

·         Is the media sexualizing our kids?

·         Take part in our media debates and discussions, and you can be our next MMC!

SABC’s DTT plans to dig into public funds 

The end of television as we know it is near with the planned introduction of Digital Terrestrial Television (DDT), or what you and I know as digital migration. Our (main) broadcasters - SABC, e.tv, and M-Net - seem prepared to go through the necessary changes to make the transition a success, as they laid down their plans for the launch of digital TV before Parliament this past week.

The broadcasters told Parliament they were planning to do a soft launch sometime in April next year (2012) which will be followed by a full commercial DTT launch" between July and September 2012. In an interesting turn of events though, the public broadcaster told Parliament that it has applied for funding of about R1.6bn to be able to make the digital transition. And that’s not all, as many more millions were needed for related services.

The SABC broke it down as follows: R1.6bn is for TV content for the new channels, R90m needed for marketing the DTT, and another R145m for a new digital master control centre over the next three years. These excluded the planned SABC Sport channel and the 24-Hour news channel. The same news channel that the SABC also asked public funds for, which did not sit well with others.

This is the same institution under investigation for graft and shown to be harbouring fraud, corruption and waste of money, and using large sums of money to purchase new content which they don’t even air. The same institution has been rumoured to be paying money to staff members for M-Net and DStv privileges. Something else to throw in here, just to show how messed up the SABC is: the broadcaster runs promos at the start of TV news bulletins saying it supports deaf people, but then fails to provide sign language translators during the bulletin so deaf people can be kept informed as well.

Back to the DDT funding the SABC has applied for, is the transition really worth this amount of money? Who should pay for this? Looking at the breakdown of the funds, R90m for marketing the DDT? Who should be tasked with marketing the digital migration and who should fit the bill for it; the SABC?

Media Freedom Week round-up 

September 19 – 23 marked Media Freedom Week in South Africa and a range of activities were planned around the country to commemorate the week. The pick of the pack was the media ownership and diversity debates and presentations that took place in Parliament in Cape Town, during which the so-called big four were condemned for monopolizing the industry.

Independent Newspapers, Media24, Caxton and Avusa were accused of using strong-arm tactics to force smaller community newspapers out of business. The companies were, among other things, accused of predatory pricing, which refers to the setting of advertising prices below cost so that advertisers could be lured away from smaller newspapers. This forces the smaller publication out of the market, after which the big players increase the prices again to regain their incurred losses.

Government spokesman Jimmy Manyi also had a chance to take a swipe at the country’s black editors, saying that government was not feeling them. Manyi accused the editors of failing to bring about diversity in print media content and of biased reporting when it comes to African culture.

The editors, through Mondli Makhanya (chair of South African Editors Forum – Sanef) disagreed with Manyi, calling what he was saying as disturbing. But Makhanya was not quoted challenging what Manyi was saying in terms of culturally biased reporting; he only found insulting Manyi’s insinuation that black and white editors must see things differently. Makhanya stressed that editors “operate as South Africans, as editors and journalists, and not as racial categories.”

The interesting thing about this accusation is that it is not only the black newspaper editors who are seen to be guilty of this, if they are. The national broadcaster, the SABC, has also come under fire from religious and cultural experts who claimed that the broadcaster was distorting traditional practices in its broadcasts and obliterated the African culture. Keep in mind that September is Heritage Month in South Africa, and 24th of September is Heritage Day.

Other than the events mentioned above, what else has been reported about regarding the Media Freedom Week? How did you find the coverage? Who said what and where about it? Feel free to engage us on the type of coverage you have seen and anything else that boggles your mind about Media Freedom Week.

School kids sexualized by media? 

The Saturday Star of September 19, 2011 featured a story of a 16-year-old grade 11 pupil who is Miss Bikini SA 2011. The story also focuses on the young girl’s dedication to her studies and even accesses her mother, indicating that the story was agreed to by both parties, that is, the publication and the young girl (and her mother as a consenting adult). However, the choice and use of the images by the newspaper left much to be debated about, but of course we will let you be the judge and tell us what you think.

First of all, the title of the story, “A bikini body to die for – and brains” did not sit well with some members of the Media Matters team. The title, more especially the first part thereof, sexualizes the girl, and the accompanying images did no justice either.

The hard copy of the newspaper published two almost identical images of the girl standing with a model-like pose in both. One image was of her in her school uniform, and the second was of the same girl in her bikini. The images are published next to each other, which kind of suggest that this is the girl fully dressed, and this is her undressed. The suggestion was also that this is what is underneath that uniform, which made some team members feel it may just change the way people out there view school girls in their uniforms. That the girl is reportedly only 16, which is a legal age of consent of course, also perpetuated our feeling of discomfort towards the images and the accompanying title to the story.

Other pictures doing the rounds show the exact contrast as we describe above. A scan of one newspaper put up on this website shows pictures of the girl, again juxtaposed, one of her in her school uniform and the other in a bikini, sitting down this time. The person who posted the scanned picture wrote: “And find it weird that the newspaper felt it was necessary to include a pic of her in school uniform.”

Our feeling exactly: we felt that better pictures, and even better comparisons of the girl in different settings, could have been used. For example (as one Media Matters team members suggested), a picture of her accepting the Miss Bikini SA award and next to it a picture of her in a classroom maybe looking busy with her books to drive home the “dedicated to her studies” part of the story, would have been much better.

There are even other pictures of her in her bikini in another Afrikaans publication, in a different pose leaning against the bark of a tree, which we felt did further damage. But anyway, like we pointed out in the beginning, we would love to hear from you on this one. We might have made public our stance on the story and pictures, but that was not to try and convince you to view this in the same light as we do. We would like to think of you as an independent and autonomous thinker who can (and will) make own decisions even with this story. So check out the story and the pictures and tell us what you think of it; we’d really appreciate your thoughts on this…

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