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The SAHRC’s enquiry into racism in the media: Problematising state-media relationships

This article examines media discourses about the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) 1999/2000 enquiry into racism in the media. The article examines these discourses in the light of the history of the relation between South Africa’s ethnic presses and the apartheid state. This history explains, in part, why the two key media discourses about the SAHRC’s enquiry into racism in the media focused on the threat to press freedom and the illegitimacy of any form of state intervention into media performance. However, given the history of the media’s support for the apartheid state, it is argued that in a vibrant democracy with a constitution that protects freedom of expression and freedom of the press, questioning media performance should be seen as a legitimate part of civil society’s participation in maintaining democratic practice. In examining the tension between freedom of expression and the rights to dignity and equality, a critical race theory perspective is offered and it is suggested that this perspective, as well as that of critical legal theory, underpins South African jurisprudential approaches to this tension.

Keywords: Critical race theory, ethnic presses in South Africa, freedom of expression, rights to dignity and equality, media accountability, political parallelism, state-media relations