SELF-CRITICAL SWAZI JOURNALISTS

The media in Swaziland are unprofessional and irrelevant to the people of the kingdom. Some journalists willingly work as propagandists for the state. Journalists can hardly write an intelligible sentence and the media houses are making little or no effort to improve standards. The news media lack credibility and many people see journalists as lacking in education and experience.

Anyone who reads newspapers or listens to radio or watches television in Swaziland might agree with some or all of the above. What makes the comments so important is the fact that the people making the criticisms are Swazi media professionals themselves.

This is Vusi Sibisi, a columnist with the Times of Swaziland, writing about the print media,

‘Content is invariably compromised by a lack of professionalism in the sourcing, writing, editing and positioning of news articles in the newspapers to the extent of weakening their retainer value. Interesting news stories are watered down by the incomprehensible way they are written, leaving the reader confused and bewildered’

Sibisi is one of Swaziland’s media professionals who contributed to a special edition of the newsletter Khulumani, published by the Swaziland chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa.

Bheki Makhubu, editor of the Nation magazine, another of the contributors, believes one of the biggest concerns about the media is the quality of news that makes it to the news pages.

‘Sex and murder have become the only events that make the front pages in the newspapers today.

‘Issues of national importance like the Constitution and the rampant corruption in government are rarely, if ever, reported on. News analysis no longer exists even though the Observer has more columnists today than at any other time in its history.'

There is no longer investigative journalism in Swaziland because there is too much fear in newsrooms with journalists intimidated and threatened into submission. Michael Motsa, of the Media Institute for Southern Africa, says because the media have become so docile and timid public officials have grown arrogant and are doing as they please because they are no longer afraid of the press.

This view is supported by Bheki Makhubu. ‘Today, public officials have absolutely no fear of the media. Arrogance has set in among public officers and politicians who bully the media practitioners into toeing their line while corruption and many wrongs go unchecked in this country where any form of opposition to our politics is still not allowed.’

Editors in Swaziland work under enormous pressures, some of these pressures come from within their own media houses and others from outside.

Ackel Zwane, news editor of the Swazi Observer, says, ‘Pressure mounts on the average editor from advertisers and administrators who have a different mandate from that of journalism.’

Zwane acknowledges that some editors suppress certain stories because they do not support the points of view being expressed.

Vusi Sibisi reveals that government in Swaziland uses a subtle policy of assimilation through which it rewards those journalists who toe the line with political positions or as ministerial private secretaries. This has engendered a culture of self-censorship from the cub reporter to the editor.

Some journalists willingly work as propagandists, especially at the government-controlled SBIS radio. Sibisi says journalists see their role as propagandists of the government of the day.

Listeners believe SBIS radio is used as a weapon for the government to attack its adversaries.

Sibisi says, ‘Some of the radio journalists have appropriated to themselves the prerogative to decide who is and who is not an enemy of the state and the government. Thus they have made themselves the attack dogs whenever someone criticises government.’

The whole profession of journalism is in disarray. People with talent leave jobs in media houses because of bad salaries, lack of career structures and poor on-the-job training.

Swazi journalist Bongiwe Zwane says, ‘Lack of employment has forced people into careers they would never have chosen – that is the reason the newsrooms have people who do not want to be there. Being forced by circumstances into a job shines through in the way one does the job. It is usually without zeal or passion.’

Editors lack a pool of trained reporters in their newspapers. Zwane says, ‘the stories that get to their desks most of the time are poorly written, not balanced and often “not news”. This is primarily because most of them are school leavers who have not had the training.’

There is a more general concern with what Swazi professionals like to call the ‘juniorization’ of their industry. The exodus of the best qualified and experienced personnel has led to this ‘juniorization’ of newsrooms whereby the less good young and inexperienced journalists, often untrained and seriously lacking in skills and competence, are left to staff the newsrooms and occupy high editorial positions.

Junior editors have no nose for news and concentrate on petty things while ignoring the problems faced by society.

Lunga Masuku, publisher of Youth Connexion magazine, sees something more sinister in the ‘juniorisaztion’ process. Media owners promote junior reporters into the position of token editor so that the owner can control more easily what goes into the newspaper.

‘This is sometimes caused by the fear that the media owner has towards the senior journalist who will at most tell the publisher where to get off. After all, the senior is a professional in the field and does not need advice from the publisher.

‘In order to keep the profession at exploitable levels publishers have made sure that these inexperienced editors have all the rights under the sun. Some can go to the extent of firing journalists without consulting publishers.’

Masuku goes on, ‘Most of the junior editors surround themselves with lapdog reporters who can hardly write a story and the only survive on handouts in the form of press releases’.

The media houses make no effort to improve the skills of staff as the president of the Swaziland National Association of Journalists, Alec Lushaba, says, ‘Even in this day and age, anybody can still walk into the newsroom and claim to be a journalist’.

Once on the staff in media houses, scarce resources make it difficult for journalists to gain insight and to specialise in specific areas of journalism. There is a lack of continuous in-house and further training, and lack of transparency on upward mobility opportunities and security of tenure in the journalism industry.

All of the above comments were published in 2005, but it is difficult to see much improvement in standards of journalism in the past two years. Only this past Saturday (18 August 2007) both the Weekend Observer and the Swazi News reported comments made by Swazi Television chief executive Vukani Maziya who criticised the Swazi Observer newspaper.

Maziya was upset that the Observer had reported that equipment worth E16 million (1.1 million British pounds, 2.2 million US dollars) owned by the television station had been destroyed in a fire. Maziya said this was not true. He said no one from the Observer had contacted him before publication.

The Weekend Observer reported that Maziya made his comments at a meeting to launch Kusile, the station’s new breakfast time programme. It reported Maziya saying that there was a high probability that many people did not believe stories written by the Observer because reporters at the newspaper did not bother to check their facts.

Media professionals also came under attack at the same meeting from the Minister of Public Service and Information, S’gayoyo Magongo. He criticized Swazi TV staff members who arrived at least 30 minutes late for the meeting. ‘It is even worse when the people that come in late are the ones hosting the event,’ the Weekend Observer reported him saying.