It is important that the issues are handled frankly, so that the unity that should surely emerge from this process is real, unpretentious and enduring. The recent debate on mediation on the issue of foreign investment in the media. My own impression is that this has been raised in a manner than can divert us from the central question of diversity. I say this because foreign investment resources, innovation and technology. But, it can also help to entrench the current make-up of management and leadership.
Foreign investment can stimulate diversity by opening up new vistas for blacks.
But it can also entrench monopoly control. It is common cause that we have inherited institutions of print and broadcast media whose account of our society reflected the unequal distribution of political and economic power. In so far as the electronic media is concerned, we have confidence that the Independent Broadcasting Authority will take this into account, when it set up the new radio and TV dispensation. It is right that you, as senior media workers, are seized with these issues. It is your calling to keep your country well-informed.