Slow strangulation of the free media will rob us all of hope – and truth
June 30, 2017
In a way, fake news has served its purpose. To change a narrative, to erode trust and disrupt or maintain a status quo, depending on which side of the fence you find yourself. Some will argue that fake news and the propaganda brigade have already won, and that such untruths always existed in tabloids operating on the smuttier side of life. We forget that fake news allowed George W Bush to invade Iraq, and that WMD (weapons of mass destruction) was more of an invention than WMC (white monopoly capital) is right now. The R68 000-a-day chasm between executives and workforce force us to acknowledge our current failings. But now, in 2017, faux news has become the sharp end of a very phallic system of oppression and repression.
In an African, and ultimately global, context, the death of Suna Venter is a significant spike in temperature on a heat map of transgressions against the media. The assailants are largely faceless and yet ubiquitous. They move in the dark and yet spawn identities on social media. Welcome to the age of bots and rent-a-crowds; of hackers and henchmen.
From the tiny fingertips of Donald Trump to the blunt objects aimed at the bodies of Venter and thousands of journalists like her around the world, the slow strangulation of the media has only intensified in the slipstream of fake news, cyberattacks and state-condoned surveillance. Are we surprised that a government that can brutalise its citizens in broad daylight and in full view of cameras in Marikana can then turn around and shoot the messenger without blinking an eye?
I didn’t know Venter personally, but her works speaks for itself. The trauma of her ordeal is too ghastly for any journalist to contemplate. To our knowledge there is no evidence directly linking her death to foul play, but only a fool would try to exclude the intimidation, kidnapping and attempted murder she endured as casual factors. Venter was systematically broken by forces at war with the organs of a democracy. It was torture; the kind meted out to those who disobey or speak out against the corrupt.
In America the system is only slightly more subtle. On Thursday Donald Trump, a sitting president of the highest office in the land, saw fit to attack TV news presenter Mika Brzezinski, tweeting that she was “bleeding badly from a face-lift” and begged to spend the New Year’s holiday with him.
