South Africa
In 2023, South Africa has succeeded in staying within the top tier of the World Press Freedom Index, going up 10 positions from last year. South Africa is now ranked 25 out of 180 countries, being the second-most — behind Namibia — media and press-developed country on the continent.
The World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) is a yearly published list of countries, portraying the level of freedom in journalism. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a French non-profit organization in charge of the ranking, supports the results with additional analysis and breakdowns of methods used for the data to be as accurate and accessible as possible.
RSF described the situation in South Africa as “Satisfactory” which could be the most accurate word to describe the present layout.
Despite certain issues, including corruption, verbal and non-verbal attacks on journalists, and gender representation inequality among journalists, South Africa is still regarded as “a proponent of human rights and a leader on the African continent,” states Freedom House.
The organization does rankings on the Internet freedom level around the globe, assigning countries points, where 100 is the most Internet-free country. South Africa has gained 73 points, therefore maintaining the same position and level as in 2022.
Being a parliamentary republic, the South African government is formed by the parliament, leaving it more powers and authority. The current President Cyril Ramaphosa, according to RSF, was not once found to favor certain media over others, resulting in the news coverage image in general.
Today, one of the strongest fields presented in the country appears to be investigative journalism, states RSF. Since the early 2000s, a prestigious award in the name of Taco Kuiper has been given to the best investigative journalists in South Africa. Kuiper was a well-known publisher and business journalist who, as stated on the webpage of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, “did not shy away from taking on public institutions and profiteers of apartheid policy,” and thus found it crucial to start a fund that would support investigative journalism in the country.
In the words of a prominent young journalist, Qaanitah Hunter, “Journalism in South Africa is not broken,” she said in an interview, published in September 2023, with a radio journalist — Dan Corder. “I go to places across the continent,” she continued, “to preach about how we have gender balance in South African newsrooms.”
However, a little earlier in September 2023, Media Monitoring Africa published an article stating that women are represented in media coverage at the rate of 20%. It appears that, looking at the most recent hot topics, it is harder for female reporters to get on the media panel and be given a voice.
Another conflicting point of view on South African media is the abuse rate of journalists. According to the RSF statement, there have been none detained since 2000 (the earliest year presented in the report), and only one journalist was killed in 2014.
Simultaneously, a South African Campaign for Free Expression stated in their annual 2023 report that there had been 59 cases in which journalists experienced harassment and both verbal and nonverbal attacks.
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Aleksandra Krasnova is a Journalism and Mass Communications major at the American University in Bulgaria. On her educational journey, she aims at acing the media writing techniques to become a truthful journalist in the future.
