South Africa’s Media 20 Years After Apartheid

South Africa's Media 20 Years After Apartheid

A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance

By Libby Lloyd July 17, 2013

The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), at the National Endowment for Democracy, works to strengthen the support, raise the visibility, and improve the effectiveness of independent media development throughout the world. The Center provides information, builds networks, conducts research, and highlights the indispensable role independent media play in the creation and development of sustainable democracies. An important aspect of CIMA's work is to research ways to attract additional U.S. private sector interest in and support for international media development. The Center was one of the of the main nongovernmental organizers of World Press Freedom Day 2011 in Washington, DC.

CIMA convenes working groups, discussions, and panels on a variety of topics in the field of media development and assistance. The center also issues reports and recommendations based on working group discussions and other investigations. These reports aim to provide policymakers, as well as donors and practitioners, with ideas for bolstering the effectiveness of media assistance.

Marguerite H. Sullivan Senior Director

Center for International Media Assistance National Endowment for Democracy 1025 F Street, N.W., 8th Floor Washington, DC 20004

Phone: (202) 378-9700 Fax: (202) 378-9407 Email: CIMA@

URL:

Design and Layout by Valerie Popper

About the Author

Libby Lloyd

Libby Lloyd is a journalist and researcher on freedom of expression and media policy. She worked for both mainstream and alternative newspapers, radio stations, and magazines in South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s and helped establish a journalists' union, the Association for Democratic Journalists, during that period. She was the head of radio at a training institution, the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, in the mid-1990s before moving into media policy development. She has since worked for a number of the institutions mentioned in this report?including as a member of the council of the Independent Broadcasting Authority; as the first CEO of a statutory funding organization, the Media Development and Diversity Agency; and as a member of one of the interim Boards of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Lloyd now works as a freelance researcher on freedom of expression and media-related issues and policies. Among other things, she has conducted research into public broadcasting regulation in South Africa, funding models for community radio, the impact of the criminalization of journalism in Africa, media codes for elections, and mainstreaming gender issues into ICT laws and policies.

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Table of Contents

Preface

5

Executive Summary

6

The State of the Media in South Africa

8

South Africa Today

10

Media Then

12

Media Now 13

Granting Media Development

28

A Brief History of Media Funding

29

General Funding Trends in South Africa

30

South African Government Support for the Media

31

Other Local Funding

32

U.S. Support for Media in South Africa

33

European Funders of Media in South Africa

40

` Future Funding

42

Conclusions and Recommendations

43

Endnotes 45

4 Center for International Media Assistance

Preface

The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) at the National Endowment for Democracy commissioned this report on the state of news media in post-apartheid South Africa. South Africa's news media has become, in the post-1994 democratic era, among the most concentrated in the world, affecting the quality of its content and the sales of its newspapers. A significant decrease in international development support, and post-1994 changes to the nature of that support, has exacerbated that process. The few cases in which dedicated, targeted support has been provided have, in sharp contrast, contributed to the development of islands of investigative journalism excellence able to exercise influence both on other media and on broader South African society. CIMA is grateful to Libby Lloyd, a journalist and researcher on freedom of expression and media-related issues and policies, for her research and insights on this topic. We hope that this report will become an important reference for international media assistance efforts.

Marguerite H. Sullivan Senior Director Center for International Media Assistance

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