Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much for giving your own views on the Newspaper Press Union.  Within a limited period of time that we have can I just ask you to tell the Commission a little bit more about the Police and the Defence agreement with the Press Council?

JOLYON NUTTALL: Yes I have little knowledge of their formation as I have indicated to the panel.  They were formed in the sixties. As far as I can gather the Defence Agreement I think, from the document I managed to obtain, was first signed in 1967, and it was an agreement that sought to try to open up limited avenues of information to members of the NPU, member newspapers of the NPU, but at the same time to make it clear that there were security matters, there were matters involving armaments and weapons that under no circumstances should be published.  The founding document which I have here was in fact signed by none other than the Minister of Defence at the time, P W Botha.  And there is a famous paragraph in here which I am sure that he probably wrote which said that -		"The Minister will release as soon as possible news on defence matters that can be released.  If he is approached he will comment or issue a statement; or say that he has not comment to make; or request that no mention be made of the fact that he had been approached; and refuse to comment as even a "no comment" reply could embarrass him.  The press must abide by this.  		Reporters should understand that there are to be no arguments with the Minister".	This is the same Minister who when he was Minister told the editor of The Star, "I do not like you and I do not like your face".  	But the agreement did attempt to give clearance on some aspects of defence matters.   For example, if a public statement by an official or a responsible official, person, such as the prime minister of another country; the leader of the opposition; or a public figure in that country spoke on defence matters well those matters could be published provided the newspaper was convinced that it's a public and responsible person who made the statement.  Any other reports published or broadcast may be published provided the source of the reports is indicated, the Minister of Defence or his representative has been given the opportunity to comment; the report does not deal with South African military weapons or the supply of arms to the Republic.  	In fact very little information about defence matters was available to newspapers in the apartheid era.  Particular sensitivities were around the use of weapons, the export of weapons, disarmaments and so on.  But the agreement attempted to extricate what little juice could be squeezed from the orange rather than to have no information at all, and that I understand was what was basically behind it.	The Police agreement, as I have indicated, differed in the sense that journalists were accredited through their newspapers, newspapers actually issued press cards to them and in certain cases what they called 'accredited journalists' were given cards by the commissioners of police and that gave them access to senior police officials, and if they produced the card they could then get information which otherwise would not be given to them.  And so that agreement was seen as a way of sourcing some information, at least, for our readers.  	In the earlier years it was used, as I say, largely for what I would call police matters, but as the security police aspect grew in the seventies and eighties less and less information in fact came out and the liaison committee meetings became very difficult attempts to try and extricate more information than we were getting for our newspapers and therefore for our readers.

MS MKHIZE: Just a related question, I mean when you look back now what do you think was an incentive for the press to abide by these agreements?  I am trying to imagine because the way I understand how journalists practice if they want information, let's say about the minister today, often they wouldn't see that minister as they only source of information, they will go to the public, people with interests on what the minister is doing and that's where they will get their information.  They might then check.  So what was the incentive?

JOLYON NUTTALL: The incentive really was that some news was better than no news.  It was, on defence matters in particular, one simply could not quote other than as I have noted from the agreement, prime ministers, leaders of the opposition and so on, one was actually prevented from in fact quoting such people.  I must remind the panel that we had a list of thousands of people who were banned and could not be quoted, and that was what once led an editor to describe editing a newspaper as walking through a mine-field blindfolded. One had these endless lists of banned people and if they were quoted in those newspapers, in fact the newspaper would then have fallen foul of the law and editors would be prosecuted.  The rationale was to get some news rather than no news.

MS MKHIZE: Do you think with these agreements the Press Union put itself in a position where it could be seen to have blindly colluded with the government of the day by saying at least if we get some news, and the news you were getting you might have used as an agent for giving out to the public the government's propaganda?

JOLYON NUTTALL: Surely - the danger was there.  But as I have said editors and managers served on these committees, they were alert to the potential threat of whitewashing and brainwashing.  In my view newspaper people have a healthy degree of cynicism about the statements of politicians and their representatives and I don't believe that there was any form of collusion at all.  What there was was a form of robust negotiation and interaction.

MS MKHIZE: I mean I accept that you said you are giving your own views, but do you think the Press Council was an unbiased union when looking back now?

JOLYON NUTTALL: The Newspaper Press Union?

MS MKHIZE: Yes.

JOLYON NUTTALL: Yes, not the Press Council.

MS MKHIZE: Yes the .....

JOLYON NUTTALL: The Newspaper Press Union was a medley of interests that ranged from commercial matters, newsprint supplies, dealings with the advertising fraternity to these areas of interaction with the State over press freedom.  It had in its 18 presidents in the time under review ardent nationalists, ardent progressives, centrists, they came from various backgrounds and positions but in essence they represented what they could of the interests of mainstream newspapers.  	Newspapers from the mainstream basically, and it's a fact of life, were required to be viable and profitable by their shareholders.  The shareholders ranged from big companies to old ladies who looked forward to their dividends and I think the NPU was influenced by the need to attempt to run newspapers in a professional way while at the same time living in a very difficult environment, extremely difficult.

MS MKHIZE: As one of the senior journalists, if I may ask you, how do you think unions should restructure or position themselves today ...(intervention)

JOLYON NUTTALL: Proprietors, proprietors bodies are you talking about now?

MS MKHIZE: Yes.