ANC provincial working committee member Mlibo Qoboshiyane recently argued that journalists must remain independent of the people and parties they write about (“Media must obey ethics code of independence”, DD, November 26). He is right.
His point would be well made in relation to the deployment of political cadres to the newsrooms and executive offices of the public broadcaster and are relevant also to the launch and takeover of newspapers as the South African media experiences the greatest upheaval in its history.
But to suggest that because I considered ending 43 years of journalistic service in the public interest – unblemished by any partisanship – with an epilogue in public service as a member of parliament is no basis to question my recent editorship of the Daily Dispatch.
The media’s watchdog role means that reporters and their papers inevitably face criticism from those they write about, but my own integrity, like that of the Dispatch itself, has been demonstrated consistently over years of politically neutral, fair and balanced reporting and analysis. Thinking about going to parliament undoes none of that.
That seed was planted when I was expecting to retire in November 2012. Though my employment by the Tiso Blackstar Group subsequently was extended twice, eventually to the end of 2015, the question of what I could most usefully do after retirement remained. The timing of the 2014 election forced me to think about it sooner than I would have wished.
Though I had no association with the DA beyond the normal working relationship between reporters and politicians of all parties, I was encouraged at that time to consider applying for a position on the party’s list of parliamentary candidates. I was made no promise nor offered any inducement and would have had to negotiate the same hurdles that face every potential DA candidate.
The only concession was that I would be considered – without joining the party in advance – in a confidential pre-selection process created for people who would have to make an irreversible personal choice.
The move from journalism to parliament would have been a one-way journey if I had made it. I knew, as did my family, that I would resign immediately – and before joining the party – if I did decide to go for it.
The South African National Editors Forum set the bar slightly lower this week when it urged journalists to resign if their names appear on a party list submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission.
As it turned out, the DA was unable to deliver on that promise of confidentiality and the fact that I had considered making a commitment to public service became news before I had made up my own mind.
That has created a false perception of political alignment, which I regret for myself and for the newspapers I have served, but my work over four decades including at the Dispatch and up to the present refutes the suggestion of partisanship, as many senior colleagues and former staff have recently acknowledged.
Like most journalists of my generation I have been a political agnostic all my working life. It is a tenet of journalistic integrity that we should make no judgement nor take or reject any action based on political allegiance.
The easiest way to do that is to shun membership of any party and to avoid undue personal and social contact with party leaders, which is what I have always done.
ANC members, spokesmen, officials and MECs including Qoboshiyane chose to visit the Dispatch newsroom and the editor’s office regularly during my tenure. In that time I received one DA delegation.
My critics mostly live in a world defined by a political choice; one in which they are required to abdicate personal values to the collective choices of the party. News reporters, on the other hand, are trained to write about issues as contentious as abortion, politics and religion independently of their own views. Where they cross into opinion, their writing should be informed by their own research and analysis and never by political allegiance.
Qoboshiyane underlines that difference of approach when he says that reporters should not “harbour ambitions to represent a political party in parliament”. Had I decided to leave journalism for parliament, it would have been to represent people, not a party. The party I chose would have been only a conduit.
I am less interested in who rules South Africa than in how they rule it. For governance to improve, parliament needs to be repositioned from the rubber stamp it threatens to become and made a force for good and a bulwark against the perversion of state power. It is parliament that must build, reinforce and maintain the foundations of the new society we all say we want.
I have watched people like Naledi Pandor in a variety of roles, Scopa chairman Themba Godi and MPs John Jeffery, Ben Turok, Thaba Mufamadi, Yunus Carrim and Dene Smuts using the processes of parliament to build the best foundation for our future that they can. They might not always pull in the same direction, often they will be required by party discipline to support positions that may not be entirely their own, but they put in the hours and they care about the detail, not just the broad policies adopted at their various party HQs.
That looked like good work to me. If, as Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible, there is a possibility to do great good around the corridors of parliament. What, towards the end of a useful career in journalism could have been better than to put a shoulder to that wheel?
The path from the press to politics is well worn. Charles Nqakula, Frene Ginwala and Helen Zille are just a few local examples, but I had to consider whether I would be any good at it. I know that the good MPs on both sides of the aisle work harder than most journalists. Doing the job well often takes up seven days of the week, many of them long. I had to consider whether I had the energy for it.
It would have meant giving up that ingrained political agnosticism to make a political choice. It would have meant joining a political party for the first time in my life – and not the one I have mostly voted for since 1994, either – and submitting to the collective decisions of its caucus. I was not yet sure that I could do that when the fact of my tentative application to be considered slipped out of the DA’s leaky head office.
Forced by the unexpected leak to make a quick decision, I opted for the world I know and the instincts that still define me and withdrew from the process.
I thought about making what would have been the biggest change of my working life, but didn’t. I am who I always was with no agenda to serve but the public interest.
Brendan Boyle is the former editor of the Daily Dispatch
Thinking about the future does not undo the past
His point would be well made in relation to the deployment of political cadres to the newsrooms and executive offices of the public broadcaster and are relevant also to the launch and takeover of newspapers as the South African media experiences the greatest upheaval in its history.
But to suggest that because I considered ending 43 years of journalistic service in the public interest – unblemished by any partisanship – with an epilogue in public service as a member of parliament is no basis to question my recent editorship of the Daily Dispatch.
The media’s watchdog role means that reporters and their papers inevitably face criticism from those they write about, but my own integrity, like that of the Dispatch itself, has been demonstrated consistently over years of politically neutral, fair and balanced reporting and analysis. Thinking about going to parliament undoes none of that.
That seed was planted when I was expecting to retire in November 2012. Though my employment by the Tiso Blackstar Group subsequently was extended twice, eventually to the end of 2015, the question of what I could most usefully do after retirement remained. The timing of the 2014 election forced me to think about it sooner than I would have wished.
Though I had no association with the DA beyond the normal working relationship between reporters and politicians of all parties, I was encouraged at that time to consider applying for a position on the party’s list of parliamentary candidates. I was made no promise nor offered any inducement and would have had to negotiate the same hurdles that face every potential DA candidate.
The only concession was that I would be considered – without joining the party in advance – in a confidential pre-selection process created for people who would have to make an irreversible personal choice.
The move from journalism to parliament would have been a one-way journey if I had made it. I knew, as did my family, that I would resign immediately – and before joining the party – if I did decide to go for it.
The South African National Editors Forum set the bar slightly lower this week when it urged journalists to resign if their names appear on a party list submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission.
As it turned out, the DA was unable to deliver on that promise of confidentiality and the fact that I had considered making a commitment to public service became news before I had made up my own mind.
That has created a false perception of political alignment, which I regret for myself and for the newspapers I have served, but my work over four decades including at the Dispatch and up to the present refutes the suggestion of partisanship, as many senior colleagues and former staff have recently acknowledged.
Like most journalists of my generation I have been a political agnostic all my working life. It is a tenet of journalistic integrity that we should make no judgement nor take or reject any action based on political allegiance.
The easiest way to do that is to shun membership of any party and to avoid undue personal and social contact with party leaders, which is what I have always done.
ANC members, spokesmen, officials and MECs including Qoboshiyane chose to visit the Dispatch newsroom and the editor’s office regularly during my tenure. In that time I received one DA delegation.
My critics mostly live in a world defined by a political choice; one in which they are required to abdicate personal values to the collective choices of the party. News reporters, on the other hand, are trained to write about issues as contentious as abortion, politics and religion independently of their own views. Where they cross into opinion, their writing should be informed by their own research and analysis and never by political allegiance.
Qoboshiyane underlines that difference of approach when he says that reporters should not “harbour ambitions to represent a political party in parliament”. Had I decided to leave journalism for parliament, it would have been to represent people, not a party. The party I chose would have been only a conduit.
I am less interested in who rules South Africa than in how they rule it. For governance to improve, parliament needs to be repositioned from the rubber stamp it threatens to become and made a force for good and a bulwark against the perversion of state power. It is parliament that must build, reinforce and maintain the foundations of the new society we all say we want.
I have watched people like Naledi Pandor in a variety of roles, Scopa chairman Themba Godi and MPs John Jeffery, Ben Turok, Thaba Mufamadi, Yunus Carrim and Dene Smuts using the processes of parliament to build the best foundation for our future that they can. They might not always pull in the same direction, often they will be required by party discipline to support positions that may not be entirely their own, but they put in the hours and they care about the detail, not just the broad policies adopted at their various party HQs.
That looked like good work to me. If, as Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible, there is a possibility to do great good around the corridors of parliament. What, towards the end of a useful career in journalism could have been better than to put a shoulder to that wheel?
The path from the press to politics is well worn. Charles Nqakula, Frene Ginwala and Helen Zille are just a few local examples, but I had to consider whether I would be any good at it. I know that the good MPs on both sides of the aisle work harder than most journalists. Doing the job well often takes up seven days of the week, many of them long. I had to consider whether I had the energy for it.
It would have meant giving up that ingrained political agnosticism to make a political choice. It would have meant joining a political party for the first time in my life – and not the one I have mostly voted for since 1994, either – and submitting to the collective decisions of its caucus. I was not yet sure that I could do that when the fact of my tentative application to be considered slipped out of the DA’s leaky head office.
Forced by the unexpected leak to make a quick decision, I opted for the world I know and the instincts that still define me and withdrew from the process.
I thought about making what would have been the biggest change of my working life, but didn’t. I am who I always was with no agenda to serve but the public interest.
Brendan Boyle is the former editor of the Daily Dispatch
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