The role of the media

I like to refer to the media as the Fourth Estate, the name its members, the journalists themselves assumed at the beginning of the French Revolution, which arrived on the scene under the ringing tones of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

France, before the revolution was a monarchy, populated by distinct social classes: the nobility, the clergy and the professional, officially designated the First, Second and Third Estates; these estates overlapped to some degree and the very numerous class, of peasants and serfs did not belong to any of these recogniSed estates, as they were unrepresented in the Estates General, where the three estates occasionally met to consult on the affairs of state.

Within the Estates General class, discrimination persisted; the nobles closest to the King had many privileges and it was among its ranks that the State (King’s) Ministers, the two important ones, being Minister of Finance and the Minister of War (defence) were appointed by the King. The army was an active state organ which invaded adjacent territories to enrich the King.

The text book history of the revolution is that it was initiated by the Third Estate, the professionals who revolted, by their socio-economic status and their discrimination within the Estates General decided to call themselves The National Assembly in May 1789. Driven away from the Estates General, they met in a tennis court. There they cheekily took the Tennis Court Oath, by which they swore not to disperse until the assembly adopted a republican constitution. A violent uprising ensued which led to the flight of the King and a large number of the nobility, into exiles.

In actual fact, the revolution was not as sudden and precipitous as implied in the textbooks. It had been simmering for a long time motivated by the oppressive rule of the state and the top nobility. Behind the scenes, it was fanned by the scribes writing clandestine treatises on the socio-economic and political situation in France.

The idea of the literary movement that inspired the French Revolution can be discerned in the following excerpts from some writers: Michel de Montaigne: ‘We must keep our little back shop ... where we may establish our own true liberty;’ (16th century); Deis Diderot: ‘ ... Men will never be free until the last King is strangled with the entrails of the last priest;’ (shortly before the revolution); Thomas Paine: ‘Government, even at its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one;’ (On the eve of the revolution), Jean-Jacques Rousseau: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere is in chains;’ (During the revolution). There were many more such expression of discontent in writing before the event.

These scribes and their soul brothers, previously in the background, came out in the open and called themselves the Fourth Estate. It should not be forgotten that it was the French Revolution, long before the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, which gave us the famous “Declaration of the Rights of Man” on August 27, 1789. It condemned the treatment of the toiling masses and advocated their emancipation.

Working quietly, the Fourth Estate tentacles spread deep into the hearts and minds of the French hoi poloi. Some of the., writers interacted with their counterparts in Britain and America and made a big impact beyond the borders of France, as can be gleaned from the works of the likes of Charles Dickens’ novel, the Tale of Two Cities, and Thomas Paine who wrote the Age of Reason. Poet laureate Bysche Percy Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ stanzas were obviously fired by the French Revolution: .... Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And by the incantation of this verseScatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to an unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! 0, Wind, If winter comes can Spring be far behind So this was the literary period in which the French Revolution was born. The influence of the Fourth Estate, the media, in our times became a cogwheel in the democratic process.

Today we recognise the media as an indispensable factor in the democratic dispensation. So we come to the role of the media. Very few honest people can deny the role of the media in democracies even in our own Botswana.

The role of the media, the newspapers in their various formats, the broadsheets and the tabloids, is to disseminate news by reporting stories that eventuate in our locality and outside our borders, analyse this news or make comment on it, criticise government officials and government policy, undeterred by government resentment; that is why government time and again comes up with absurd legislations like the Media Practitioners Act, whose sole objective is to muzzle the media, in particular the independent private press, which competes with the state-controlled media: Radio Botswana, Botswana Television, the Daily News. The private media severally and collectively have become a thorn in the flesh of government. Good for our democracy. Though the government talks, freedom of the press, transparency and wave the foreign-sponsored flag of ‘shining example of democracy,’ government is intolerant of constructive criticism from the private media. Government forgets that it was through the private media that they instituted the Directorate of Economic Crime and Corruption, which has helped elevate Botswana on the highest rung of the scale of a corrupt-free nationin Africa!

Why is the government so afraid of the media when it is so government-friendly, to the extent that they constantly warn it of the wisdom of avoiding political pitfalls, at every step in their forward march. Take the extra-judicial killings.

These do not augur well for the future of government unless it gives them a wide berth! Foolishly, the government would rather heed reports from Radio Botswana, BTV and the Daily News, which are scared to tell the truth lest they antagonise their employer, When our government bashes Mugabe, do they ever stop to think that he is going astray precisely because he imprisons journalists and gags the independent media while pursuing the ill-fated route of registering journalists? When they threaten to apprehend Al Bashir and hand him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), do they ever stop to think, there is no freedom of the press in Sudan and hence the genocide in Darfur and instability in the country?

During the recent general elections, Batswana who had eyes to see, saw how the government abused the State media, by broadcasting ruling party political statements and making negative reports or omitting to report positive activities by the opposition.

It is a given trait by ruling parties in developing countries to systematically keep the opposition under the leash, while it boosts its own image and whitewashes its atrocities and latent failures. Our government is no exception, if anything, it is learning, the tricks which it condemns at random elsewhere with amazing speed.

Freedom of the press is the cornerstone of democracy everywhere, and it is the sacred duty of the media to defend this priceless asset by all means at their disposal, to ensure that it is never lost in our political development. We should always remember the apt and sober words of Thomas Jefferson.

The author of the Declaration of lndependence in the US; he replied to critics of freedom of the press in these words: “The basis of government, being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.”

Voters cannot make sound decisions on the issues before them without a free flow of information and opinion. That is why in the remote areas of Botswana where only the ruling party has access, as they have both transport resource and the ubiquitous favourable radio broadcasts, the ruling party will stay dominant and the opposition will play second fiddle indefinitely. In the US, the American voter has a virtually unlimited flow of information. Sources include newspapers, magazines, radio, television and mailed communications.

Senate and House debates are widely disseminated and the press conferences of major officials are covered in detail and there the mass media are genuinely committed to impartial, unbiased reporting of facts.

To assist voters to make intelligent decisions, we notice how the media organises debates at presidential level, to give the voter the benefit of accessing the political mind of the candidates who offer themselves for election. Voters should not be asked to buy a pig in a poke as it happens here, particularly that a large percentage of Batswana voters are illiterate and cannot read the party manifestos circulated during the elections campaign. The mass media have now expanded into homes and

places of business, so that their influence is very powerful and an inevitable part of daily life. A wide circulation of the media besides the high illiteracy and poverty of the population is hindered by problems of transportation and distribution to some remote parts of the country.

In the cities, towns and big villages, the role of the independent private media is slowly beginning to be felt. Both broadsheets and the tabloids are multiplying and the reading of these is beginning to reflect in the dedicated writing of newspaper articles and letters to the editor. One can safely aver that another important role of the media, is to educate the population and draw them to the love of literature. Reading of newspapers and books, we know nurtures and stimulates thoughts and ideas and writing.

*Michael Dingake is a political observer and a columnist for Mmegi. Through this article, which was published in 2009 as part of Mmegi 25 anniversary, we pay tribute to the fallen politician-cum-writer. Rest in peace MK!