Sanef has expressed deep concern on how ongoing retrenchments will have on South Africa's democracy and called for government and private support for the struggling media sector. Picture: African News Agency (ANA) Sanef has expressed deep concern on how ongoing retrenchments will have on South Africa's democracy and called for government and private support for the struggling media sector. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)
JOHANNESBURG - The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) has expressed deep concern at the effect the ongoing waves of retrenchments at media houses across the country, now also taking place at Primedia, will have on South Africa's democracy and called for government and private support for the struggling media sector.
Primedia includes 702, KFM and Cape Talk, as well as national news brand Eyewitness News (EWN). The Primedia Group has 786 full-time employees, including 323 at Primedia Broadcasting, which is the largest division. The media company has not announced how many employees will be affected.
In a statement on Sunday, Sanef noted that this announcement came hot on the heels of Media24’s announcement of a possible 510 retrenchments, which followed announcements of possible retrenchments of 600 employees at the SABC.
Sanef had calculated that about 700 jobs had been lost already through retrenchments in the print media sector, including the closure of Associated Media Publishers (AMP), the selling of the magazine division of Caxton, and also the closure of about 80 small print media publications across the country, organised under the umbrella of the Association of Independent Publishers (AIP).
Sanef noted the severe hardships of journalists and media workers who had lost, and who face, the loss of their jobs, but also the problems for democracy of a shrinking media industry with shrinking newsrooms and fewer publications and media entities to cover the stories of all citizens.
"We believe that South Africa needs to hear more voices, and from all provinces, if we are to ensure a robust and thriving democracy. We again call on all stakeholders to support the media industry, including government, corporates, and individual citizens.
"We call on government to make good on its promise to look into ways to support the media industry, a promise made by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his engagement with Sanef at the end of May, corporates to continue to advertise, and citizens to support the media through donations, membership fees, subscriptions, and buying local newspapers. Sanef will be taking up the president’s offer for support."
Sanef thanked the corporates that had committed to Sanef’s media relief fund, including MTN that provided the initial seed funding of R500,000 and had encouraged other corporates to support, First Rand for its commitment to R500,000, and Alan Gray and Nedbank for their commitments. Sanef also thanked the Open Society Foundation for their commitment of R500 000.
These commitments had been warmly received. Sanef thanked the Social Justice Initiative (SJI) for their support as fiscal host to the fund to oversee the distribution of funds in line with transparent, efficient, and fair processes, and also thanked its panel of media stalwarts, including Mathatha Tsedu, Joe Thloloe, and AIP chairperson Wandile Fana and Melody Emmett of the Southern African Freelancers' Association (Safrea) who would make the decisions around individual grants to journalists who had lost their incomes.
"Sanef notes that the first round of applications is now closed. The panel of media stalwarts will start their work in the coming week in distributing the funds. Sanef will be announcing the next round of grants shortly," the statement said.