Opening Address by President Thabo Mbeki to the 60th World Newspaper Congress of WAN, the 14th World Editors Forum and the Info Services Expo: the Cape Town International Convention Centre: 4 June, 2007.

President of the World Association of Newspapers, Mr Gavin O’Reilly,

President of the Newspaper Association of South Africa, Mr Trevor Ncube,

Chief Executive Officer of the World Association of Newspapers, Mr Timothy Balding,

President of the World Editors Forum, Mr George Brock,

Distinguished diplomatic representatives, dignitaries, senior media proprietors and executives,

Editors and other professional journalists,

Departmental managers of media companies, Heads of organised industry bodies in the newspaper world

Accompanying persons and other honoured delegates and guests.

We have looked forward for some years to this auspicious event, the first-ever summit of your prestigious organization to be held in Africa in its 60 years of existence. We thank you (at least many of you) for leaving the more familiar places where you have held past world congresses, to come to our continent Africa.

Apart from extending the heartiest congratulations of the Government and people of South Africa to you on reaching your sixtieth anniversary, may I also welcome you all - such a distinguished and impressive gathering of world media figures - to Africa, to South Africa, and indeed to the city of Cape Town.

We are very happy indeed, to welcome you here, having known of your intention to come in numbers to our land for some years now. In this regard I recall the meeting I had with the Board of WAN at the Union Buildings in our executive capital city of Tshwane (Pretoria) a number of years ago, when we gained the first intimation that it was indeed your hope to hold your Conference in our country. I am very glad that that intention has now been realised.

A supplement in a local Cape Town newspaper (Note: The Cape Times) stated in 1996: “South Africa’s endeavour in reconciliation and inter-racial co-operation has captured the imagination of the world. The transition was seen abroad as a miracle, a fairy tale in which good triumphs and evil is vanquished ...”, and it went on, and this needs emphasis:

“Yet it will take more than a magic wand to complete successfully the task of reconciliation and reconstruction which began at the Union Buildings on 10 May, 1994 (the Presidential inauguration at which Mr Nelson Mandela was installed)”.

I am happy to report to you that we have indeed made much progress in the effort to promote reconciliation and reconstruction. The sense of national cohesion has grown and continues to grow, marking our sustained advance away from the more than three hundred years of racism and racial division.

Despite incidents of racism and xenophobia that are largely rooted in history - incidents that we deplore - the people of our land are slowly getting to know and appreciate one another, and this is particularly evident among the youth. We are steadily building a national consensus about what it is to be a South African, and about the pride and sense of achievement that we all share on the domestic and world stage. Social cohesion, so ruinously elusive in the past, is becoming an important part of our reality.

Similarly, the socio-economic situation is also changing, resulting in gradual improvement of the standard of living especially of the black poor, who, for the first time, can now look to the future with hope.

None of this means that we are anywhere near eradicating the 350-year legacy of colonialism and apartheid. Nevertheless the definite message we would like to convey to this distinguished gathering is that we have made progress as the Cape Times said we must, and will sustain and accelerate the pace of change focused on achieving the objective of a non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society.

Throughout our continuing change process, the Constitution, the sovereign force in the land, and forged with overwhelming support among previously warring parties, has been our constant lodestar, and - interpreted and protected by the tenacious and independent wisdom of our Constitutional Court - has given us the space in which to deepen our democracy.

In this context, it is necessary for me to emphasise that the South African Constitution is there to protect the essential freedoms on which our democracy rests, and that, pre-eminently, includes the right of free expression - a subject obviously close to the heart of an organization which annually awards a Golden Pen of Freedom and rests on firm foundations of respect for unfettered journalistic excellence.

Whatever genuine concerns there may be about those tendencies in the easy-access electronic era which can, including via the internet, serve to endanger, deprave and corrupt people - notably innocent children and the otherwise vulnerable - we shall always weigh actions proposed to contain such forces against the guarantees of free expression as entrenched in our Constitution.

At the same time, it is surely incumbent on the media to be introspective and to conduct itself in ways that will enhance and not undermine acceptable standards of public morality and good behaviour in a progressive and enlightened state. Though making up a proud Fourth Estate which is rightly opposed to any Government interference, surely the media also carries the basic responsibilities of citizenship.

It is, I would suggest, important for the media to do various things to professionalize and perfect their craft, such as improving training methods, broadening the scope of specialist and in-depth writing and research, and retaining skilled and experienced practitioners within the profession.

Even if there is the necessary chasm between the media and government in the perennial debate about what constitutes the public or national interest and so on, at least the debate must proceed in openness and honesty. We do believe that both government and the media are called on to act responsibly in a well-run state. This also applies to public relations, marketing and advertising interests that can have such a powerful influence in society.

To an audience like this we can particularly ask that the media should broaden its coverage, and be prepared to get out into our country and see for themselves the progress made and also the setbacks we have experienced in our national policies and practices.

Since this is WAN’s first foray into Africa, I should like to extend the argument beyond South Africa and urge that the news media should - in whatever ways they think appropriate - tell the African story in as much depth and contextual detail as possible, and physically get around the continent identifying the successes and reverses so as to reflect what is really happening on the ground.

Our continent has not escaped the effects of the tussle between media freedom and governance. There are some countries on our continent where journalists are in prison and this is worrying for all of us. African media workers and editors have been complaining about this, as has the African Union Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression in her reports.

There is particular anger around what is seen as impunity enjoyed by some governments in their perceived or actual actions against journalists and editors. I am also aware of the feeling among African editors that libel and similar laws are used to deal with a media that is seen as uncomplimentary to the authorities.

The problem of media freedom around the continent is an important one as the media’s role in informing and thereby empowering the people of Africa cannot be disputed. We note with appreciation the efforts underway between the African Union and the African Editors Forum to declare a year of African media freedom so as to mobilise public opinion around the important role media plays in development. There are also plans for an annual day for media freedom as well as opening lines of communications between the political leadership and editors. This may culminate in the first debate between five Presidents and five editors in Accra, Ghana, in a month’s time.

This kind of dialogue is new and holds the hope for breaking new grounds in extending freedoms and understanding between political leaders and leaders of our media community. For our part here at home, we are meeting with our editors in two weeks time to share ideas, as we have done in the past.

In this context we must also express our own concern about the insecurity of journalists in various parts of the world, represented, for instance by the kidnapping of Alan Johnson of the BBC in Gaza, and the reported killing of as many as 12 journalists in Iraq in May alone.

We in Africa can and do benefit from criticism, but we do ask that it should be based on accurate information and should be properly contextualised. We also know that the amount of foreign coverage in much of the world media has been dropping over the years. For instance, the December 2006 issue of the publication, Global Journalist, says the percentage of front page international stories in the US media fell by 13 percent between 1977 and 2004. One might ask; have world events become less significant? The evidence also suggests that as the news media have transformed themselves to compete with new technologies, foreign bureaus have suffered significant cut-backs.

We appreciate that there are limits to keeping many news bureaus running in a huge and geographically challenging continent such as ours. We appreciate also that, rather than have numbers of bureaus abroad, publications may very well rely more on single correspondents to cover regions.

Nevertheless, we would still appeal: “Come and see as much as you can!” Get to the heart of issues. Research them before coming. Find out about the big issues which are coming up, for they may have a huge impact on your viewers, readers or listeners.

So, honoured delegates, I suggest that you take a very close look at Africa and its promise. For too long we have seen a negative type-casting of the continent. Multi-party elections are now the norm in African governance. Ensuring peace and security in Africa is no longer the assumed province of formerly metropolitan powers but matters for engagement by Africans themselves. Peer review is becoming firmly established on the continent.

In three years we shall be hosting the 2010 world cup in South Africa. We invite you to return to this land and see for yourselves not only spectacular soccer, but also the national progress that we shall undoubtedly make between now and then - as we have done consistently since 1994. We appreciate that your own world, like ours in Africa, is changing radically. “Goodbye Gutenberg” is a cliché in your industry, as you say goodbye to traditional typesetting and printing and turn your craft permanently into a white-collar job, now complete with desk-top citizen journalism. Bloggers abound, as an article in Nieman Reports, the journal of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, put it in its Winter 2006 edition, with one writer observing:

“Joe Liebling once wrote that freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. Today we all own one, in the sense that there are tens of millions of bloggers out there.”

Change is necessary. In that regard, one might note the finding of the writer, Edward C. Norton, Nieman Fellow in 1973, that the “future is here”, and adding the observation that “Amazon used to be a river; Yahoo was a bumpkin; googol is 100 zeroes; and Google is a noun, verb and adjective”.

You have chosen the theme “Shaping the Newspaper in the Digital Age”. Yet some of the old issues that faced the media in the last century are still with us today. Writing about an incident that happened in 1920, when the US newspapers joined the hysteria around the wrongful arrest and execution of two men, Sacco and Vanzetti, Ben Bagdikian in his book, “The Media Monopoly”, says “the press is a mirror of sorts, which might account for its reflection and promotion of the hysteria. But in its great numbers and variety, it is also supposed to be a kind of balance wheel, bringing reason and diversity of opinion to its reporting and commentary. The balance wheel had failed.”

He goes on to say that “(The news media)... are not frozen in a permanent set of standards. But they suffer from built-in biases...”

We continue to grapple with this matter of the role of the media, even as you moved from black and white to colour and ultimately into the palms of our hands. We grappled with this issue also in relation to the question of the place of embedded journalists during the Iraq invasion.

Once more I am honoured to welcome you to our country and, on behalf of the Government and People of South Africa, to wish you productive discussions. We look forward to engaging with you on the outcomes of your meetings. I declare this summit open.

I thank you.