OPINION: Media should not jettison editorial principles in favour of absurd entertainment | RediTlhabi
Members of various small political parties brief the media at the IEC Results Operations Centre on Thursday, 10 May 2019.
It is not only politicians who have some work to do. South Africa's media has much to reflect on, much to discard. There is always an obligation to cover all parties that contest the election. However, long before the election season began, long before the election date was announced, the media was obsessed with the utterances of charlatans, caricatures, divisive vigilantes and generally unsavory characters whose morals are always on sale to the highest bidder.
And then there is the Black Land… or is it Black First or First Last or…? Okay, let's just use the easier acronym, BLF. It pains me to even write about them because they are not worth a second of my time. But they are the perfect case study for my argument that the media often undermines its audience and chooses mindless frivolity over substance.
I can already hear the hysterical rejoinder,"It is unfair not to cover smaller parties". This is not an argument against smaller parties, it is an argument against the media's relentless coverage of certain smaller parties whose contribution to debate is zero, but whose noise saturates the air, at the expense of important voices and events that must be covered. Smaller parties that make a useful contribution to our democratic space deserve some coverage.
I am sure by now you get the message that the media should not ignore smaller parties because of their size, but such coverage must have substance and news value. To further illustrate the point about the media's obsession with loud and deranged characters, Agang and the African People's Convention were annihilated in these elections.
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