Battle chief moves on

As he headed for a new continent, and a job at the Hindustan Times, Rachael Jolley spoke to Nic Dawes, editor-in-chief at South Africa’s Mail and Guardian, about challenges to press freedom, concerns about wider censorship, the worst and best aspects of the media, and how he sees the years ahead

His reputation as an investigative journalist precedes him. Nic Dawes doesn’t shy away from taking on tough stories, and giving oxygen to information that would otherwise stay firmly locked in a drawer.

While editor-in-chief of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian (M&G), he has spoken out, again and again, against the Protection of State Information Bill and has written about financial scandals involving South Africa’s ruling party despite pressure not to do so, and fought against a media appeals tribunal with members appointed by a parliamentary committee.

All this suggests he is not a man who likes to spend time sitting on a sofa with his feet up. So it comes as no surprise to find out that, while most of us might think a relaxing cycle ride would be a 15 km trip around a woody trail, Dawes recently took on a hard-core 910 km bicycle race across the country, and didn’t forget to tweet it for his paper.

The last two years have been marked by tough struggles between leading South African journalists and the South African government, for which stamina and the ability to overcome huge obstacles have definitely been in demand. Dawes recognised it has taken a great deal of time to “make sure the South African press remains as free as it is now”.

Stopping government attempts to push through a new media appeals tribunal, with state appointed members, was one of the challenges, and Dawes was one of the leading combatants in a campaign to stop direct political involvement in media adjudication.

It brought public discussion and a broad public engagement, not just in newsrooms and metropolitan salons, but in poor neighbourhoods in remote locations

“The ANC has broadly accepted the change and have substantially backed away from a media appeal tribunal. There are still voices of that party calling for statutory regulation so that’s not completely over, but I think we made a great deal of progress.”

The other major struggle was against government plans to introduce the Protection of State Information Bill, the so-called secrecy bill, which would have made it almost impossible for the public or the media to uncover evidence about corruption or to protect whistleblowers who outed evidence of misdeeds. It suggested that publication, but also possession of classified information for whatever reason, could be punishable by a jail term of up to 25 years.

ABOVE: A demonstrator protests against the Protection of Information Bill in Cape Town

Credit: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

Dawes says: “It took place in the international context of growing use and abuse of this kind of legislation, including in those established democracies like the US, and the UK and Canada.” Dawes and allies fought off some of the worst aspects of the legislation, but he believes it is now “about as bad as some similar international statutes,” but, and here his passion for South Africa comes flooding out, “those should absolutely not be our standard. Our standard in South Africa should be our constitution that requires that any legislation which has the potential to infringe on our basic rights is only acceptable when it is consistent with an open democracy – Section 32 is clear in that regard.”

The struggle is not yet over, in his opinion. “We didn’t get it all the way over the line … so there will be appeals to review the legislation on the basis that it remains inimical to press freedom and freedom of information generally.”

The four-year battle over the secrecy bill brought the different elements of South African journalism together, as might have been expected, but the surprise was that it brought them unexpected allies. “The wider victory for freedom of information as a result of this campaign becoming an issue is that it brought public discussion and a broad public engagement, not just in newsrooms and metropolitan salons, but in poor neighbourhoods in remote locations. That is bigger than anything we won on the page,” says Dawes.

“I think what it helps us do is to create a climate of support for whistleblowers. Trade unions have got very much involved in the campaign against the legislation because their view is that it is essential to their ability to obtain justice for workers.” What has happened, he says, is that this issue has created a set of unusual partners, people who before didn’t know each other, and what has happened as a consequence is that “we have taken the fine words of the constitution and made them live on the street and the shop floor.”

Being elitist and not covering or caring about issues of the rural poor, or issues beyond the metropolitan elite, is an accusation aimed at journalists around the world. Dawes thinks South Africa’s media is doing better than it was at covering stories outside the major cities and from a wider group of people, and part of the reason is social media. He believes the power of Facebook and Twitter to allow people to connect with journalists should not be underestimated. His background in digital media has undoubtedly helped to stimulate M&G’s expanded use of web and social media. “We have got to do much more, such as savvy use of new tools to make a difference as well.” Social media, and its impact in giving currently excluded communities voices in newspapers and websites should not be underestimated. “Many communities are going to leapfrog print, they are going to leapfrog web and go straight to mobile. Cheap Android phones are coming in and 4G is coming. The potential is absolutely staggering. What we are going to see in five years, we can’t even imagine right now.”

Not only do journalists need to break away from the same old circles and the media circuit, but they need to do as much as they can to talk to the people who the stories affect, not people speaking for them, he argues. “Part of the circuit can be academics and activists whose voices get in the press instead of the people affected.” Asked for an example of the way M&G had done it differently, he mentions a three-page backgrounder that looked at poverty, conflict and discrimination in the platinum belt, voicing people’s dissatisfaction with working conditions in the area well ahead of the Marikana belt, the mining protests that ended in the killing of 44 people.

After a long and distinguished history as an investigative journalist it is clear that, despite high office at the paper, Dawes’s news nose has not deserted him. He recently came across the sniff of a story while out on his bike. He spotted long queues of people waiting at a water standpoint as he cycled past, started tweeting questions, and uncovered the beginning of a story about water supply problems.

Looking back, as one has a tendency to do ahead of a big move, he rates one of his high points in South African journalism as the story he broke about the ties between a national police commissioner, corrupt business people and the criminal underworld – “It spoke to the criminalisation of the state at a very high level.” During his time as editor-in-chief he has shown commitment to supporting that kind of journalism among his team in innovative ways. Not just by encouraging his reporters to go out and spend time on creating good, thorough pieces of work, rather than skimming-off-the-top superficial stories, but also by helping set up a non-profit arm, a centre for investigative journalism. The centre, AmaBhungame, provides investigative journalism training for reporters from around Africa. This approach has borne fruit, says Dawes, by setting the news agenda, not just in South Africa but in surrounding countries, including Zambia and Zimbabwe. With an oppressive news environment for journalists in Zimbabwe, the M&G, under Dawes’ leadership, has also expanded its coverage of its neighbour to find “stories told that are not being told at home” and started selling papers over the border.

We do enjoy a robust and free media in South Africa. You can find stories that any government would find challenging

The Freedom House 2013 report on press freedom cites Zimbabwe’s status for press as “not free”, with a 77 score, with journalists facing intimidation, attacks and arrests

Investigative journalism comes in all shapes, sizes and sections of the paper. Dawes is particularly proud of a fight to keep details of business ownership in the public domain, so that South African companies had to continue to list their shareholders publicly, “something that was set to disappear.”

One element of South African media which is in dire need of reform, he argues, is SABC radio, the public broadcaster and main source of news for many thousands of people, particularly in rural communities. “It is in a dire state (newspapers cannot fill the gap) and much more attention should be given to what they are doing.” His lament will sound familiar to the critics of public/state news radio in the country Dawes is heading off to, India, where legislation prevents other operators from setting up competitor news radio channels to the government-backed national channel.

Dawes’ departure from South Africa has been widely discussed, with many wondering why he is making the leap. He says that media anger about the Protection of State Information bill has not been a factor in him leaving for India: “While I am disappointed and angry that the people who brought us press freedom now seek to restrict it, I am not sad in a way that makes me feel despairing.”

“We are going through a very classical process, what happens when a liberation movement has been in power for a while and starts to see its hegemony challenged and then reaches for a convenient lever to limit that challenge.”

He points out that this comes from a fraction of the ANC, not all of it, But he also points to Nelson Mandela’s legacy as part of that fight for a free press. “Mandela’s legacy has been too easily dismissed by too many South Africans, including our political leaders. His legacy is being brought back to us.”

And he thinks the move to India and the Hindustan Times, with its 3.7 million readers, will be challenging and exciting: “It is an utterly compelling story, and anyone from a media background would be excited to be part of it. You have remarkable and sometimes difficult economic and social change within a very dynamic political environment,” he says, tactfully.

But he is leaving behind a media that he thinks consistently breaks important stories, and is not afraid of invoking government displeasure. “We do enjoy a robust and free media in South Africa. You can open your copy of a paper here and find stories that any government would find challenging.”

“We are not prevented in any explicit way from publishing those things, and even the implicit pressures are withstood pretty well.”

Now Dawes is leaving South Africa, and heading for India, where media consumption is mind-blowingly massive, but where political influence and corruption are stalking horses. Luckily his enthusiasm for taking on challenges is undimmed.