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Title: Editors under fire by Harvey Tyson ISBN: 0-947024-39-5 Publisher: Johannesburg Random House Pub. Date: 1993 Format: Unknown Binding

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: When the truth did not set you free
Comment: Journalism is not often considered, at least by the general public, a noble profession. However, few people would deny that the media plays a vital role in democratic societies. What happens, though, when the journalists become enemies of the state, where the mainstream media finds it impossible to be faithful to its conscience, and stay within the law? What is the role of journalists in an authoritarian state? This is the question asked by Harvey Tyson in his book, Editors under Fire. Not a personal memoir, as he emphasises, the book tells the story of the liberal mainstream English-language press during the apartheid years in South Africa, when they were subject to increasing pressure from the state, and from conservative sectors of the public. It is densely packed with stories that are at times exhilarating, at times frightening, and at times painfully sad. These narratives were contributed by some of South Africa's past and current top journalists, including Mervyn Rees, Jon Qwelane, and the incumbent editor of the Sowetan, Aggrey Klaaste. It gives a comprehensive overview - from all sides of the colour, if not language, spectrum - of what it was like to try and bring the truth to the South African public against the wishes of the authorities. Through the stories, the impression is created of a group of swashbuckling rebels, spurred on by dedication to the cause of bringing the public the truth. As the American editor Horace Greeley is quoted as saying, "'Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you are at it.'" It often sounds more like "Bond, James Bond" than a South African hack following up leads on the notorious Infogate scandal, an investigation that was one of the triumphs for journalism and a major embarrassment for the government. Tyson paints that impression virtually throughout, and the profession takes on an almost Hollywood glamour of dashing defiance. Of course, it is also brutally honest about the terrible experiences endured by those journalists who found themselves within the long arm of the law. Every person opposed to apartheid in South Africa at that time had a dilemma of conscience - does one obey a law as a matter of principle, even though it may be unjust? This was an especially pertinent question for journalists, who must publish their transgressions daily for the world to read. The Star journalist Jon Qwelane said: "My first and undivided loyalty is to my newspaper and its readers, not to the state.'" There are many stories through the book relating arrests and detentions of journalists; others received death threats, or had attempts made on their lives - sometimes allegedly by the secret police. In situations such as these, traditional ethics necessarily took on new meaning, and journalists took to tactics such as asking sources not to reveal their identity, so that they could not later be forced to tell police. Arrests, detainments and convictions were handed out for anything the authorities could possibly think up - the Rand Daily Mail's Peter Wellman was in prison for six months for refusing to testify in a case of a minor infringement on a banning order. However, whatever mistreatment white journalists received, often the real punishment was reserved for their non-white colleagues. Not only were they harassed by the state, but were under constant suspicion of betrayal by black militant organisations. Probably the most far-reaching measure enforced by the state was, however, censorship. As apartheid's laws became increasingly rigid, the state tried introducing more legislations to regulate what could and could not be printed. Censorship was also carried out as a matter of course by the police and security forces, both through vetoing the publication of certain information already known to the media, or by either keeping back vital facts, or simply lying. Journalists became experts in negotiating the murky waters of apartheid legislations, finding which clauses were crocodiles and which lily pads. Journalists, points out Tyson, had to be lawyers as well. If the book's version of the story is to be taken at face value, English-language opposition newspapers were at the very forefront of the battle against apartheid. Tyson admits that it does not attempt to cover the experiences of the traditionally more conservative Afrikaans press, or of black organisations. The pitfall here is that, despite this concession, the (somewhat misleading) picture painted is of a very potent and lonely crusade. Tyson says, in his conclusion: "In hindsight it may be seen that the English-language press was the major and irreplaceable force in keeping alive the values of democrats during a prolonged and debilitating siege. For decades, they formed the only press which was actively hostile to authoritarianism in almost the whole continent of Africa. Without their presence, no advocacy journals, no 'alternative' press, few extra-parliamentary opposition organisations could have existed in the republic. Had the mainstream press surrendered at any time, all opposition voices would have gone underground as they did in Poland and other communist states." This stance, which smacks of liberal arrogance, however justified, can jar through the book, and it has been criticised - not least by Professor Guy Berger, a well-known media expert. While Berger admits that the liberal press played an important role, he points out in an article in the Mail & Guardian that "...[It] was not as different as people like Tyson would like to think. It reflected establishment assumptions where white newsmakers and white audiences counted. Blacks did not. Only a few brave, white English-speaking journalists saw the role of black resistance beyond their papers' liberal - and limited - opposition." Despite this criticism, the book remains a tribute to those journalists who risked their jobs, liberty and even their lives to reveal at least some of the truth about apartheid South Africa.