Media History and Background

With an estimated population of 49,991,300, South Africa is one of Africa's major media creators as it publishes/distributes newspapers, magazines, books, and broadcasts television and radio. An estimated 1.3 million newspapers are sold daily and there's 280 locally published magazine titles currently available with an annual turnover of $800 million dollars. Book publishing is rather small and brings in a moderate profit with just over 3,000 total employees in the book publishing industry.

However, the media in South Africa has had major issues in the past with freedom of the press. During the apartheid of the early 1990's, South African media were hampered by government censorship for it's criticism of the apartheid system and the National Party Government. Up until 1994, Alternative Press thrived greatly through distribution of community broadsheets, bilingual weeklies, and student "zines" and samizdats.

The end of the Apartheid in 1994 brought and end to censorship and a new constitution was created which has a bill of rights allows every citizen the right to freedom of expression. There's also little evidence of repressive measures against journalists.

But some questions have been raised regarding bias's in the media. Almost all large daily newspapers are owned by four large media firms (Avusa Publishing, Naspers, Independent News and Media and CTP/Caxton) which may lead to pro-corporate bias.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is considered to carry a strong pro-ruling party bias (African National Congress- ANC). This could also be due to the fact that majority of SABC's management/executive staff are either ANC members or ANC aligned.

Some media reports concluded that the SABC has blacklisted certain commentators and analysts which may be critical of the government.