Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

MR LEWIN: Well, that is, yes, that is on another par.  Could I ask, which I think is a related question and I do not know whether, I mean, I do not see how you can actually answer it, but let me ask the question, because it is something that has been raised.  Coming down to very practical points, specifically in relation to the figure of Mr John Horak, who appeared yesterday.  I mean, he explained how he was there for 25 years almost or 27 years and seemed to be implying that everybody knew who he was, that the, that everybody had, sort of, put him in that position and he called himself a listening post so the people could come to him and he could put them in touch with other people.  Yet, his final appointment by senior management at TML or at SAAN, his final appointment was to make his manager or group managing editor which put him in charge of all the newspapers, all the syndication system and, therefore, in charge of the entire computer system so that he could dip into anybodies copy anywhere, here and overseas.  	We have a story, for instance, of someone in London being requested by John Horak to do a quick brush-up on the anti-apartheid movement so we can run the story.  Clearly, he was not asking about the, he was not asking those things for reasons of getting a decent story.  How was it possible to appoint a person like that after he had been there for so long, after there had been so much said about him, into a position like that?

NEIL JACOBSON: Mr Chairman, I would deeply like to know the answer to that question as well.  I think it is utterly appalling, I think it is horrifying that a sleaze-ball like that can be put into a position of authority.  I do not know the answer.  I would love to know it.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: (Indistinct) duck and dive.

MR LEWIN: Right.  Could I ask your comment on, in terms of moving forward now, because, clearly this is what is important.  You, again, talk in your submission about white newspapers seeing things through white eyes, inevitably.  How do you see that whole model changing?

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: Well, I think, Mr Chairman, broadly, you know, newspapers have to see things through South African eyes where we being to move away, as I indicated earlier, from this parochial mindset where we see ourselves as addressing a particular audience.  We need to be responsible and, hence, we also raised that we have got so many stakeholders and one of the key stakeholders are the readers and we put them first.  The readers have to be South Africans.  I mean we have a publication, The Sunday Times, which is a national, in fact, even more than a national newspaper.  It is the widest circulating newspaper in the country and that newspaper is, as you will have noticed, it is in the process of being transformed, it is changing and it is, it sees itself, the editor is here, it sees itself as a South African newspaper, not as a northern suburbs newspaper.	It has to be responsive to the entire South African population and articulate the views, the experiences and, indeed, the aspirations of all the readers that it is accountable to.  In the end it is accountable to the South African society as a whole.

MR LEWIN: Mr Chairman, I am being told the lunch is getting cold, but I would like to ask one further question, because it arises out of a submission that you might not have seen reported today, which came yesterday from a group talking about the alternative press, talking about the life and death of some of the papers like South, Saamstaan, Grassroots in the Cape which reflected a similar pattern up in this area and the suggestion was made that papers like this are, because of the role they play, are tremendously important as part of the community.  One of the reasons for their dying and one of the reasons for their not being able to be sustained is that their funding, which was largely foreign funding, has dried up, obviously.	One of the suggestions was that it would be in the interests of everybody if they were supported.  Would your company, as a mainstream, more important, therefore, healthier, larger, more financially viable company be in a position to make some assistance there?

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: Well, Mr Chairman, I think it is certainly something that we need to think about.  Don Mattera or Mr Don Mattera, as he prefers to be called, comrade Mattera, raised the question and I thought it was quite an interesting suggestion that there should be some fund and we are not new to funding broad based type of projects.  We are involved in funding training of journalists, more broadly based, journalist schools, not necessarily journalists will come to TML only, but journalists will go to whatsoever other publication and, I am sure, this is an initiative which we can look at quite, quite seriously.  Of course, there will be competitors in the end, but alternative media serves a very important purpose in the life of society and, particularly, in our country where not everybody has access to your mainstream newspapers.  	They are able to articulate, at times, type of sectoral news, community news, local news and there is a role for them to play and it is a suggestion that we would like to canvass further and discuss ourselves internally.

MR LEWIN: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: I have to be strict here, gender issues or no gender issues.  Ms Mkhize.

UNKNOWN: Thank you very much.  I will be quick, because the male Chair is using his muscle now.  I really think, much as I am aware that we do not have much time, but I think it is important for our record to get clarity about Times Media Limited.  We have listened to people arguing for the, for space, for blacks, in particular, arguing that in the media world racism has been a fundamental problem.  It happened in, you know, in terms of, small things like tea facilities, toilets, you name it and escalated to reporting and I, taking it further, one will think of images about different people in this country, the power of the media in portraying images of people.  Where, when you started here, when you gave your presentation, the opening remarks were, we reject to having colluded with the Government, blah, blah, blah and yet when Cyril, Mr Ramaphosa was introducing the representative, I got an impression that, it is like, it is still, really, predominantly white male dominated niche. 	Just, I am interested in how you view your base, you know.  You seem to be coming from different worlds.  There is nothing wrong with your structure and, yet, to me, based on what other people have been saying, it is, like, you still have a big problem in your hands.  So, I just want to tap your views as to how do you see your structure where it is now and how is it going to be and important media, I mean, in terms of taking the media forward.