The defence of journalism and journalists is a social justice issue

John Pilger, one of the world’s most pioneering social justice journalists, died in 2023. He once explained the importance of investigative journalism by saying: “Without it our sense of injustice would lose its vocabulary and people would not be armed with the information they need to fight it.”

If you look at the history of journalism in South Africa, there can be no doubt that Pilger was right. From the earliest independent black newspapers in the 19th century, through apartheid and into the democratic era, journalism has been an unbroken thread linked to the quest for justice and equality.

The same can be said of the role of independent journalism internationally; as borne out by the cruel harassment and imprisonment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, now a free man again after 14 years. But while Assange may be the most high-profile instance, journalists around the world risk their lives to expose injustice and reveal truth almost every day.   

Journalism has always been a threat to power. But overall it has been able to resist these threats. However, in the words of Bob Dylan, “the times they are a-changin’ ”.

Of course, state persecution of journalists continues all over the world, and is getting worse.

Data from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows the continued persecution of journalists across the world. (Image: Sarah Spicer / CPJ)

• The reach and massification of readership/audience made possible by new digital technologies and platforms has generated huge financial resources for social media platforms and made their owners inordinately wealthy. They were capable of using that wealth for or against social justice. They have chosen the latter.


• The supra-nationality of the platforms has largely allowed them to evade regulation, accountability and taxation.


• With this power they have abandoned the ethical principles and rules that self-govern journalism, which means that:
  
  
  
  • They have no inhibitions about contesting meaning and even truth;
  
  
  • Their platforms can be wielded consciously to protect injustice;
  
  
  • Misinformation and disinformation can be used to polarise and divide people; and
  
  
  • They have abandoned any pretence of impartiality and objectivity.
  
  
  
  


• They have also weaponised social media against more traditional forms of media and created a new universe of alternative rules-free media to contest rules-bound media.

• Doing more to emphasise the connection between an independent and widely accessible media and the realisation of human rights; this means framing (and even litigating) access to independent media as a human rights and rule of law issue;


• Making alliances with journalists and working hand in hand to defend publications and journalists who are under attack from either the state and/or the private sector;


• Demanding that the state funds public broadcasters adequately and respects their independence;


• Filling the “news deserts” with access to independent and progressive media;


• Calling on governments and competition authorities to break up media monopolies and conglomerates;


• Building media literacy among activists and in the general public to counter disinformation and misinformation;


• Working with organisations like the Campaign on Digital Ethics that are demanding effective oversight and reasonable regulation of the digital space;


• Signing the Ten Point Plan to address the information crisis (Sign here); and


• Calling for criminalisation of creating and spreading disinformation that is dangerous to health and life, on the same basis that hate speech is criminalised.