History of the press in South Africa
During the apartheid era, newspapers had to apply for registration if
they published more than 11 times a year. An arbitrary amount was also
required before registration was approved.
The government also enforced regulations controlling what newspapers
could or could not publish, especially relating to articles and comment
on activities against the apartheid system. Newspapers were, for
instance, not allowed to quote banned organisations and their spokesmen,
or report on conditions inside prisons or the activities of the
security forces.
At the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s, when two
states of emergency were declared, censorship regulations were
tightened. Newspapers were barred from reporting on any demonstrations
or activity against the apartheid government or any of its laws.
The threat of closure forced newspaper editors to apply a
self-censorship policy, while other papers printed blank pages or whole
paragraphs blacked out as a sign of
protest.
The English press
The history of the South African English newspaper industry is linked to
the mining industry, as mining tycoons established or acquired
newspapers through Johannesburg Consolidated Investments, a subsidiary
of mining giant Anglo American.
Independent Newspapers, South Africa's largest newspaper group, traces
its history back to 1889 when Francis Dormer established the Argus
Printing Company, which had close links with mining magnate Cecil
Rhodes.
The Argus Printing Company was renamed Argus Newspapers Ltd after it was
taken over by Anglo American. Anglo American ended its ties with Argus
Newspapers in 1994 when it sold 31% of its stake to Tony O’Reilly, the
owner of Independent Newspapers and Media of Ireland.
Johnnic Publishing, formerly Times Media Ltd, also had its roots in
mining. Abe Bailey, a mining tycoon, bought the Rand Daily Mail in 1902
and the Sunday Times in 1906. In 1937, Bailey
added the Sunday Express to his stable, and out of these publications
the South African Associated Newspapers was formed in 1965.
Anglo further reduced its involvement in newspapers when it sold 35% of
its shareholding in Times Media Ltd - which it owned through Omni Media
Corporation - to the National Empowerment Consortium, a grouping of
black businesses and trade unions.
But as mining interests were curtailed in newspaper ownership, foreign
ownership became a factor. Independent Newspapers is a wholly
foreign-owned company after O'Reilly's company bought the rest of Argus
Newspapers' shares in the 1990s.
The Afrikaans press
The Afrikaans press, on the other hand, was established mainly as a
reaction to the liberal views expressed in some of the English papers,
particularly relating to issues such as slavery, the tensions between
the Dutch farmers and the Xhosas, and the work of the missionaries in
the Cape.
The editors
of earlier Afrikaans newspapers were, in most cases, ministers of
religion who were committed to strict Calvinistic ethics. The papers
were also more concerned with the Afrikaner cause against British
domination than with being commercial ventures.
The press was seen as a cultural and political weapon for the promotion
of the Afrikaans language and political independence, as well as for
drumming up support against the perceived threat of black nationalism.
The first newspaper to propagate the interests of Afrikaners and the
Dutch, De Zuid-Afrikaan, was started in 1830 by Christoffel Joseph
Brand, an advocate who was unpopular with the British colonial
authorities. In its third year its subscription base rose to 3 000 when
Afrikaners from the other British-annexed parts of South Africa embraced
it. It folded in 1904, however, after losing its influential backers
following its editor's support for Cecil Rhodes in the clash against the
Afrikaner leader Paul
Kruger.
The present-day Afrikaner press, which has its roots in the political
split among Afrikaners over participation in World War 1, has extensive
interests outside of the newspaper industry. These include stakes in the
telecommunications, information technology, entertainment and
publishing industries.
The black press
The origins of the black press in South Africa is linked to the
establishment of mission stations in the Eastern Cape and the work
between missionaries and indigenous people. The missionaries taught
literacy to black people and in the process transferred the skills and
resources necessary for publishing.
The first newspaper intended for black readers, Umshumayeli Wendaba
(Publisher of the News), was printed at the Wesleyan Mission Society in
Grahamstown from 1837 to 1841. Many others followed, the most
significant being Imvo Zabantsundu (African Opinion), started by John
Tengo Jabavu in King William’s Town in
1884.
Jabavu had resigned his editorship of a missionary-owned paper,
Isigidimi samaXhosa, after convincing himself of the need to publish
newspapers independent of missionary control. His paper was the first to
be written, owned and controlled by black people.
Other black-owned newspapers that followed were associated with the
establishment of political movements for blacks, with editors more
radical than Jabavu. The papers included Izwi laBantu, started in 1897
by AK Soga; Ilanga lase Natal (The Natal Sun), started by John Dube in
1903; the ANC’s Abantu-Batho, formed in 1912; and the Indian Opinion,
established in 1903 by Mahatma Gandhi, the founder of the Indian
National Congress.
But lack of capital, equipment, skilled workers and a reliable
distribution network saw the entry of white capital into the ownership
and control of the black press.
This started in 1932 with the establishment of Bantu Press Ltd by an
ex-farmer who saw the potential of profits
to be made in the black market. Bertram Paver inaugurated a national
newspaper, Bantu World, a tabloid modelled on the British Daily Mirror,
which represented a move away from a local to a national black press.
Bantu Press was, 14 months after its establishment, taken over by the
Argus Newspaper company, which controlled it until 1952. The Argus
company soon became the first monopoly in the black press, with 10
weekly papers in the southern African region, and handled advertising
for 12 publications in 11 languages.
Jim Bailey, the son of mining tycoon Abe Bailey, started Drum in 1951
and then Golden City Post in 1955, which were both aimed at black
readers. Both publications were run by white editors brought to South
Africa from Fleet Street newspapers.
The next phase in the development of the black press came in the 1990s
when Anglo American, through Johannesburg Consolidated Investments, sold
some of its publication and newspaper companies, such as Sowetan and
Times Media Ltd, to black business groups in empowerment deals
facilitated by the advent of democracy in 1994.
The protest press
South Africa had a huge number of opposition newspapers during the
apartheid years; some lasted for only a few issues, while others are
still in publication.
The more mainstream newspapers to specifically provide news and opinion
in opposition to the Nationalist government policies included the Weekly
Mail - founded after the liberal Rand Daily Mail was closed down - Vrye
Weekblad, New Nation and South.
These had a wider national readership and were able to secure
advertising and distribution. The state nevertheless attempted to shut
them down by banning and seizing specific issues, with serious financial
consequences for the papers.
The anti-apartheid press was also made up of smaller newspapers,
produced by organisations and educational institutions. One of these was
Sash, originally known as
the Black Sash, produced by the Black Sash organisation from 1956 to
1994.
The organisation, largely made up of middle-class white women, mounted
petitions, protests, marches and vigils to oppose apartheid, all of
which were detailed in the newspaper. It brought issues such as pass
laws, migrant labour, the Group Areas and Bantu Education Acts, forced
removals, detention without trial and land reform to the attention of
white South Africans.
Grassroots was started in 1980, the first of a series of anti-apartheid
community newspapers, with a circulation that grew up to 20 000. The
paper struggled financially, but was helped by small donations and
advertising sold to small Cape Town traders. Eight months after
Grassroots began its first organiser, Johnny Issel, was banned. The
newspaper managed to survive until 1990.
Work in Progress was a trade union publication, produced from 1977 to
1994 and founded by University of Witwatersrand postgraduate students.
It both
challenged a number of bannings and made inroads into Publications Act
committees declaring its material undesirable. In July 1994 Work in
Progress was incorporated into Southern Africa Report.
The African Communist was first produced by the South African Communist
Party in 1959. Produced in London, it was moved to South Africa in 1990.
Jeremy Cronin is the current editor.
Critical Health focused on health issues in the context of the
prevailing socioeconomic climate of unequal provision of health care in
apartheid South Africa. It was published from 1979 to 1994.
Contact was the official publication of the Liberal Party, published
monthly from 1954 to 1967. The Liberal Party was the only legal
multiracial party in South Africa during this period, but was dissolved
in 1968, when legislation made multiracial parties illegal in South
Africa.
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