Cape Town — The lack of investment in journalism is one of the key challenges hindering the ability of South African media to report on poverty and inequality.
This became clear at a discussion facilitated by journalist and radio host John Perlman at the conference, "Towards Carnegie III," held in Cape Town. Perlman was joined on a panel by some of the country’s leading editors to examine the media’s role in raising awareness about poverty and winning support for lasting solutions.
“Poverty and inequality are the big story,” said Nic Dawes, editor of the Mail & Guardian, but he acknowledged that the media seldom reported outside of the big urban areas and had been “awful” at raising awareness and understanding. However, he defended his paper, saying it had introduced a specialist fellowship for reporting on poverty.
Editor-in-chief of Avusa newspapers, Mondli Makhanya, said the public was more intrigued with luxury and the lives of the rich and famous than poverty, but it was nevertheless the media’s job to reflect the harsh realities of society.
“We do cover poverty, but in a way that focuses more on the effects of poverty,” said Makhanya. “We look at the violence that happens, the social ills, but we do not necessarily tell ourselves that we are covering poverty.”
Budget cuts in newsrooms made it difficult for newspapers to devote the time required for thorough, consistent reporting of issues related to poverty and inequality, said Alide Dasnois, editor of the Cape Times.
She acknowledged that the media could do more to draw the link between the opportunities lost due to corruption and the impact it has on poverty. But she said the media should go further, to investigate why there is so much corruption in South African society and what pushed people to behave in this way.
“Poverty goes hand in hand with extreme forms of ignorance,” said Mpumelelo Mkhabela, editor of the Sowetan. He detailed a gruesome case of children dying from poverty and neglect in the North West province, but said his newspaper had just one reporter covering the entire area.
“If media had better resources, perhaps we could deal with these kinds of things before they happen,“ he said.
In the current economic environment – although arguably even in profitable times – there is little reason to hope that media management will invest resources to boost the number of reporters or enhance their capacity.
“If we don’t go out and do good reporting, we fail the country and we fail democracy," said Pippa Green, a board member of the SA Broadcasting Corporation and head of the journalism programme at the University of Pretoria. "We have to invest more in reporting.”
In response to a question on what academics and non-governmental organisations could do to get media attention, Nic Dawes said NGOs such as South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, which lobbies on HIV/Aids issues, and Section 27, a public interest law centre, had been very effective.
Dawes said it was critical for NGOs to compile evidence so they could generate “hard news” and to build relationships with reporters.
Pippa Green agreed. “Journalists and academics doing research should be talking to each other, that’s a useful way of popularizing information.”
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