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Tsedu's prescription
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Premier's Office

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MEDIA RELEASE
DAILY DISPATCH  8 SEPTEMBER 1999
 EDITORIAL OPINION Tsedu's prescription

EVERY SO OFTEN government and media need to get into the same room -- as they did in Bisho and Port Elizabeth last week -- to remind 
themselves that most of their campaigns are aimed at the same goals.

Their relationship will always have elements of conflict, Star deputy editor Mathatha Tsedu reminded the Bisho gathering, because the media 
see themselves as watchdogs over government, and both see themselves as representatives of the public interest. Both are, in a democracy, 
in very different ways.

In South Africa at present, government and media tend to agree at the level of purpose. Their differences are sometimes over the best 
policy to achieve the purpose, but most often at the level of performance.

To take a simple example, both media and government support the common purpose of a sound education for all South Africans, to enable them 
to become productive citizens. (Anybody who does not needs their head read.) Many media commentators, however, criticise policies like 
outcomes-based education, school funding formulas and raising the age of admission to the seventh year.

The more vocal criticisms are about the performance of administrators and educators, most pointedly at those teachers who seldom teach and, 
for the moment, at foul-ups in the teacher redeployment process.

Similarly, the government and media claim to be committed to the national campaign against Aids and HIV, but accuse the others of not doing 
enough. At provincial level, this newspaper has campaigned to have the fire disaster in the North-Eastern Cape treated with the same 
urgency as the Western Cape disaster.

Government and media claim to be committed to eradicating corruption, and Bisho can claim credit for the Heath Special Investigating Unit, 
which has become a national institution. In practice, the media accuse the government of being too soft on corrupt colleagues and public 
servants.

Both would do almost anything to turn the tide of crime, but they often disagree about the most effective means: speeding up the 
transformation of the police force, for example, or slowing it down; by supporting the courts or reconstructing them. The creation of 
Scorpion, a home-bred FBI, was greeted with unanimous approval

Many of the hitches, we are all aware, stem from a severe lack of funds and a lack of capacity. In some cases, national government might be 
reaching too high too soon. It saddles the struggling provinces with unfunded mandates -- policies which the provinces are expected to put 
into practice without the funds to make them happen.

Too often the media struggle to find out where problems lie -- a department which has not followed the right procedures to get its money, a 
finance department being unduly meticulous -- or simply a lack of funds.

Tsedu's prescription for improving relations is absolutely correct: government communicators must have the political clout to attend top-
level meetings, to speak as the voice of the government, and to answer difficult questions.

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