Zuma and the Media

Without the media’s help President Jacob Zuma would have not been where he is today. Without the ANC I do not think that any newspaper in South Africa would have survived financially. The media know that the majority of South Africans are supporting the ANC and therefore they need to make sure that half of every newspaper every day is covered with stories of the ANC.

Last week the hopes of ANC presidential hopefuls, like Sexwale and Motlanthe, was shattered by news reports on the controversial painting of the president’s genitals. This was sealed by the continuous reports on how outrage and hurt the president and the ANC were.

Let me explain how Jacob Zuma is benefitting from the incident. We are all aware that in 2005 Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma as his deputy president. This gave Zuma and his supporters an opportunity to portray him as a victim of a political complot. As a victim it gave him leverage over his competitor Mbeki as people usually sympathises more with victims than anything else.

The painting therefore is a blessing in disguise for Zuma’s dying Mangaung campaign. Once again this gives Zuma and his supporters an opportunity to portray him as a victim and surely this will garner him more sympathy.

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that is right to portray the President of South Africa like that. I am merely outlining the advantages of the painting and the bias of the media. The media was also the one that perpetuated the violence against black internationals and termed the incident that happened that night in May 2008 on the Eastrand as ‘xenophobia’.

Xenophobia is the fear for all strangers but what happened during the month of May 2008 throughout South Africa was not a fear for strangers but a fear of black African refugees. It was the media reports that alerted thugs and criminals to use an incident like that as an excuse to loot Somalian owned businesses.

So once again the media is giving Zuma an unfair advantage over his competitors for the top spot in South African politics, but they will not complain because they will be laughing all the way to the bank.

22 May 2012