CENSORSHIP – ADVERTS AND LIBEL

I wrote last week about the research I had undertaken on censorship in the Swazi media.

My conclusion that journalists felt that King Mswati III was the biggest cause of imposed and self-censorship in Swaziland didn’t come as much of a surprise to media watchers.

But, I want to make clear that although the monarchy is the main concern among media people in Swaziland it is not the only cause.

My report, commissioned by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter, also identified advertisers and the threat of libel action as significant worries.

Below is an extract from the report called The Existence of Censorship in Newsrooms. If you want a copy of the full report please email me at swazimedia@yahoo.com


Advertisers and financial interests of organisations

The threat of losing advertising is real, this is especially so as the economy of Swaziland is declining. The privately owned media is dependent on advertising to survive, and since a small number of organisations spend so much the media houses give serious consideration every time there is a complaint from an advertiser.

Some advertisers are so important to the newspapers that a special relationship exists between the advertiser and the advertising department. The advertising department knows that some advertisers will never say ‘no’ when approached to advertise. For example, if a newspaper is running a special themed advertising supplement, it might approach a regular advertiser to support it. If the advertiser has already spent the annual advertising budget, an advertisement would still be placed and the advertisement paid for at a later date, when funds are available to the advertiser.

A number of companies and organisations were specifically cited as organisations that regularly tried to censor the content of newspapers. They were Swazi Bank; the cellphone company, MTN (‘a definite no-go area’ and ‘you can’t write about blackouts in the service’); the Swaziland Electricity Company and Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications (SPTC).

All the foregoing are major companies or parastatals in Swaziland. But smaller companies are also given special treatment. One such company that was mentioned more than once by respondents was the Why Not (a recreation and entertainment venue). In the case of the Why Not, respondents said they did not even feel able to publish a poor review of an act that appeared at the venue, for fear of losing advertising.

Although media houses will keep stories about advertisers out of the media there is a limit to what they will not report. For example, one respondent said they would publish a story if a chief officer of an advertiser were accused of rape.

Newspapers do not fear the withdrawal of advertising by government, although, according to the African Media Barometer, published by MISA, this has happened in the past. It is felt that government has little choice but to use the newspapers in order to get information out to the general public (although state-controlled radio, SBIS is also available for this). One respondent said that in the past when the government did withdraw advertising it was done by one small part of government and the ban lasted about one week.

There was a minority view that advertisers did not cause problems for media houses because they understood that newspapers had a duty to publish. Advertisers were satisfied if the media house gave the advertiser a platform to give its side of the story.

Libel

Many respondents reported that hardly a day went by without somebody threatening to sue them in order to ‘scare them off’. A letter from a lawyer often accompanied these threats. There was a general feeling that some people who claimed that they had been libelled by the media were ‘trying it on’ to get the media house to agree on an apology and costs before the case got to court.

The great time delay in getting cases to court could intimidate media houses. One respondent said a case could take up to two years before it went to court. Another said that lawyers, acting like ‘ambulance chasers’, tried to keep a case going as long as they could. This guaranteed the lawyer an income, when lawyers had very few other opportunities to earn.

Media houses sometimes settled cases, even those where they believed they had not committed a libel, for fear of the huge costs involved. Libel insurance to protect media houses was becoming prohibitively expensive in a climate where claims for libel could be as high as E3 million.

This fear of the high cost if a case was lost has led to some stories being dropped or angles in stories being toned down.

Media houses often settled out of court to avoid the protracted hassle and possible costs of pursuing a case to court. One respondent said settling out of court was a dangerous move for media houses. ‘Once you settle, you open the floodgates for everybody else.’

Another respondent said, ‘Settling for fear of going to court has reduced the confidence of journalists and lowers the standards of journalism’. This led newspapers to only go for soft targets (people who could not sue) and to leave larger, more important, targets alone.

Sources

The media protect their own sources by not publishing harmful stories about them, but this protection is not total. Some respondents revealed that they would not publish the story in their own newspaper, but would pass it on to another newspaper in the same media house, for them to follow up.

Some respondents admitted to censoring stories about regular sources in order to ensure a future flow of stories from that source.

When a regular source wants to keep something out of the media, a certain amount of negotiation takes place. There were a number of examples given where a source – often an official spokesperson for an organisation – offered the media house a ‘juicier’ story in exchange for dropping a story that would reflect badly on the organisation that the journalist was working on.

Sources often get their way, and many respondents revealed that they were given ‘better’ stories in exchange.

Taboos and cultural traditions

Cultural traditions are said to be very important in Swaziland and there exists a duality in the legal system between constitutional law and cultural and traditional law.

Despite the apparent importance of culture, most respondents said that they did not allow traditional leaders to interfere with the media’s work.

Some respondents said that there are no real cultural traditions in Swaziland. ‘We don’t respect that cultural leaders are sincere,’ one respondent said.

Other comments included, ‘To Hell with culture – nobody has authority to challenge us.’ ‘Nobody’s practising culture in our country any more.’ ‘Women in the villages are only doing it for survival, they don’t really give a damn.’ ‘I’m here to break cultural taboos.’

The only area in which culture was respected by the media, concerned the King. There are a number of things that culture dictates cannot be reported about annual ceremonies concerning the King (e.g. the Reed Dance and Incwala) and the media (reluctantly, according to respondents) censored themselves. It was clear from respondents that there were many stories from the Reed Dance and Incwala that were known to the media, that they would like to publish, but did not, for fear of the consequences from the King.

See also
CENSORSHIP AND THE SWAZI MEDIA