The role of the media during elections – register on this link https://forms.gle/7cnLemEx5smxEdHV6 for the webinar on Tuesday 7 September, and have a look at this topic in the SANEF election manual.
South African National Editors’ Forum commends the bravery of the country’s journalists, who are working under very difficult conditions while navigating the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. The recent unrests in Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal saw journalists’ lives being threatened and at least 5 radio stations attacked, and their equipment stolen.
SANEF held a virtual non-elective Annual General Meeting, on Saturday 14 August, and discussed several issues including the challenges facing the industry – from media freedom, media sustainability, training of journalists ahead of the elections, access to information, education & training, and support for community media.
The AGM reasserted the pivotal role that journalism continues to play in our constitutional democracy and the importance of the work that has earnestly started to get the media industry to be financially sustainable.
Sbu Ngalwa, SANEF chairperson, said: “We have a lot of work ahead of us as an industry. We are now fully engaged with the work towards the sustainability of our profession. Members attending this AGM yet again reiterated their commitment and support to all efforts to ensure that we continue to enjoy a strong and independent media which produces quality journalism”.
Five community radio stations support
SANEF has decided to support five community stations that were recently affected by the unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. The five stations, Intokozo FM in Umlazi, Kasie FM in Katlehong, Alex FM in Alexandra, Mams FM in Mamelodi and Westside FM 98.9 MHz in Kagiso, will each been assisted with R20 000 to use towards the purchase of equipment they need as they work towards recovery, fully focused on serving their communities once more. The five stations were also specially recognised at the Nat Nakasa Awards, held on Saturday evening in Johannesburg.
Covid-19
Since our last AGM in August 2020, Covid-19 has continued to cause pain and destruction to our industry. It has done so not only through the loss of jobs and revenue, but we have lost a number of colleagues to the pandemic. SANEF sends its condolences to their families and colleagues. We have also seen our frontline reporting staff going out to cover stories and risking infection, which has affected newsroom operations. Importantly, working closely with the government, we managed to get most of our media workers under the age of 35 vaccinated. An achievement made possible through working closely with the Department of Health and the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) and ultimately, the National Coronavirus Command Council.
Media Freedom
Recently, an unprecedented number of journalists have been threatened for doing their job. In some extreme instances they have been threatened with death, for no reason other than the colour of their skin or the media house they work for or for simply doing their work.
We continue to condemn these as these instances of intimidation have grown since our last AGM. Media freedom remains sacrosanct, and we will continue to defend it as one of our guiding principles as an organisation. SANEF continues to call on law enforcement agencies, political parties and members of the public to respect the work of journalists and to allow them to do their work, without any fear or favour. We will continue speaking out against transgressions when it comes to media freedom, not only in South Africa, but throughout the continent as we continue to work closely with partner organisations such as the Southern African Editors Forum, The African Editors Forum, Committee to Protect Journalists, International Federation of Journalists and WAN-IFRA.
Education and training
On training, SANEF continues to be heavily invested in the training of young and mid-career journalists as we seek to enable them to not only be better reporters, but excellent media managers who can ensure the future of a vibrant media industry in our country.
SANEF undertook a consultative process with community, health, and other journalists to develop a guide for reporting on Covid-19 in South Africa. The “Reporting the Pandemic ” guide highlights the importance of good local Covid-19 coverage and provides journalists and media practitioners with the much-needed technical understanding to accurately convey information about the pandemic. The guide was developed by SANEF and FrayCollege – sponsored by Internews SA to assist journalists and media practitioners to navigate the novel experience of working during a global pandemic.
SANEF has started the work of training reporters to enable them to cover local government elections and to understand municipal finances ahead of the local government elections. We have expanded our 2019 elections portal, with a range of reporting resources – including a local government and election data dashboard and training material. – see elections.sanef.org.za. The portal has been designed so that it’s easier to add materials for future elections. On the safety of journalists during the election period, the portal contains a quick guide for journalists on the best ways to report online and other harassment directly to the police, the SA Human Rights Commission and the IEC. Journalists will also be able to submit requests to SANEF for support with complaints. Community and first-time election reporters will also be able to access some of the online resources through Pocket Reporter, a mobile app which features templates for election stories.
We are finalising a Reporting the Courts manual, to ensure that reporters are equipped to accurately cover, understand some of the complex legalese and also grasp sensitivities when it comes to reporting on Gender-Based Violence and cases involving children. The manuscript of the Reporting the Courts handbook has been fully revised and was sent out to a small focus group of readers for comment. It is now in the final stages of correction and proof-reading in response to those readers’ comments and some very recent court judgments impacting on content (e.g., the ConCourt ruling on the Jon Qwelane case). A respected judge has been invited to write the foreword. Once this is received, proofed, and inserted, the manuscript will be ready for layout as an online but printable on demand publication. We will also print a minimal number of courtesy hard copies for donors, contributors etc.
Mental Health and Journalists – SANEF/SADAG partnership
SANEF launched a critically important partnership with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) to prioritise newsroom and reporter wellness. Many of our colleagues suffer from deep trauma, anxiety, and depression – the effects of which can be absolutely devastating. A very successful webinar has already been held and the programme will be rolled-out to newsrooms across the country.
We encourage journalists to use the SMS service (31985). The service – which includes individual counselling – is available free of charge.
Media Sustainability
Since the outbreak of Covid-19, SANEF managed to raise money to provide relief for journalists who have lost their jobs during the lockdown period. We would like to thank all our funders who put financial resources behind our Media Relief Fund. Four successful rounds have been completed so far, with close to R1,7 million being disbursed. Recently, an announcement was made for the fifth and last round of applications.
After this round, all efforts will now be directed towards journalism sustainability as SANEF leads with research aimed at finding sustainable business models that ensure the future of journalism in South Africa.
The recent research by SANEF which culminated in the report titled, Media Sustainability and Universal Access to Public Interest Journalism, made several recommendations including:
New Minister in the Presidency
SANEF welcomes the appointment of a new Minister in the Presidency, Mr. Mondli Gungubele. We are hopeful we will continue to have a fruitful working relationship with his ministry as we seek to not only partner with the government to ensure media sustainability but also to have robust engagement with the president and his executive.
We had already started engagements with the late Jackson Mthembu to discuss media sustainability and we hope Minister Gungubele will continue with those discussions in due course. We hope President Cyril Ramaphosa will honour his promise to have regular engagement with the media and to take questions when he addresses the nation on various major decisions and announcements by his government.
Note to Editors: The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) is a non-profit organisation whose members are editors, senior journalists, and journalism trainers from all areas of the South African media. We are committed to championing South Africa’s hard-won freedom of expression and promoting quality, ethics, and diversity in the South African media. We promote excellence in journalism through fighting for media freedom, writing policy submissions, research and education and training programmes. SANEF is not a union.
For more information please contact:
The South African National Editors’ Forum will assist journalists with online training and reporting resources in the run-up to the local elections, scheduled for 27 October this year.
The SANEF 2021 municipal elections portal, now available on https://elections.sanef.org.za/, provides newsrooms with information that they can use in planning their election coverage, training manuals, a local government data dashboard and other reporting tools.
The portal builds on the online resources for the national and provincial elections in 2019, when SANEF and partners provided election training to hundreds of journalists around the country, backed up by an online election handbook and election updates.
The expanded 2021 portal features newsroom manuals and training materials for a series of local government and election coverage webinars to be held from end July on topics which will include how municipal elections work, the role of the media during elections, electoral disinformation, the safety of journalists on- and offline and municipal finances.
Throughout its 25 years of existence, training of journalists has been one of SANEF’s key priorities, especially during election times and often in collaboration with the IEC and journalism training institutions. This ongoing capacity building and investment in democracy and governance reporting skills and resources are also part of SANEF’s efforts to ensure that journalists provide the public with fair, balanced and accurate information to rely on when they prepare for voting day.
A new addition to the election portal is a data dashboard which provides journalists with detailed information on municipal demographics and finances, to assist them when they do stories on municipal performance and service delivery in the run-up to the elections.
Additional electoral datasets will be added to the dashboard when released by the IEC and will include information on registration levels for each municipality as well as the parties and candidates contesting ward and proportional representation seats.
The portal also provides newsrooms with information on a range of election initiatives and reporting resources, from projects to counter disinformation to service delivery levels in municipalities.
On the safety of journalists during the election period, the portal contains a quick guide for journalists on the best ways to report online and other harassment directly to the police, the SA Human Rights Commission or the IEC. Journalists will also be able to submit requests to SANEF for support with complaints.
Note to Editors: The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) is a non-profit organisation whose members are editors, senior journalists and journalism trainers from all areas of the South African media. We are committed to championing South Africa’s hard-won freedom of expression and promoting quality, ethics and diversity in the South African media. We promote excellence in journalism through fighting for media freedom, writing policy submissions, research and education and training programmes. SANEF is not a union.
For more information please contact:
SANEF would like to invite companies and individuals with a minimum of three years’ experience in evaluating development projects to bid to undertake one or two or all three of the following evaluations:
Evaluations tender for three separate evaluations:
Please click the link for more details: Evaluations Tender x 3 evaluations 2021 – updated
SANEF would hereby like to invite you to submit your proposals for the SANEF Election Services Tender for the 2021 Municipal Elections.
Please click the following link for the tender document: SANEF TENDER DOCUMENT FOR ELECTION DATA DASHBOARD – 2021 – Final
For more information please contact:
Socials
Twitter: @SAEditorsForum
Email: [email protected]
Website: SANEF
On behalf of the Independent Electoral Commission and United Nations Development Programme
Cape Town – A multi-faceted and inclusive approach is needed in order to harness
the power and to mitigate the risks presented by digital and social media to the integrity of elections.
This is one of the key issues to emerge from a four-day conference themed
‘Safeguarding Electoral Integrity in the Digital Age: Strategies for Combatting Digital
Disinformation’ which ended today in Cape Town.
Attended by nearly 200 delegates including senior representatives from over 30
election management bodies (EMBs) across Africa, election professionals and digital
media experts from around the world including representatives from the major social
media platforms, the conference was organised by the Electoral Commission of
South Africa in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP).
At its conclusion, the conference delegates recommended that a continental working
group be established to build on the work of the conference to develop guidelines to
govern the use of digital and social media in elections in Africa.
Ather guiding principles which emerged during the conference are that:
• A human rights approach should underpin any regulatory and normative
framework on digital media in elections
• Principles of impartiality, accountability and transparency should guide the
creation and composition of any statutory institution mandated with monitoring
digital and social media in elections
• To guard against over-regulation of digital media in elections, measures must
not erode the self-determination and identity of communities especially
marginalised groups
• There must be established a multi-level partnership at national, regional and
continental levels for coherence and maximisation of benefits of social and
digital media and risk mitigation measures to produce a draft set of guidelines.
“Over the past three days, we have noted that disinformation and misinformation is
not a new phenomenon brought about by social media. It is as old as democracy
and the news itself. But what digital and social media have done is to amplify the impact
of disinformation at many levels – including how we relate to content, how we
structure content, how we consume and the rate at which we transmit information,”
said South Africa’s Chief Electoral Officer Mr Sy Mamabolo.
“Social media is an everyday reality and part and parcel of communication and
information infrastructure. Clearly, there are advantages and disadvantages,
especially for us in elections. We must manage this new digital environment and
increase capacities and digital literacy as EMBs and as electoral stakeholders,” he
said.
Among the common challenges of digital and social media, as experienced
throughout the continent is that when used maliciously, disinformation can distort
and harm democratic and electoral processes and it also has the potential to
increase polarisation which can provide a breeding ground for democratic
backsliding and can also become a tool to reinforce authoritarianism, populism,
negative ethnicity and narrow nationalism.
The threats posed by digital media were exacerbated by a weakening of the
traditional media throughout the world and continent.
“Social media is a powerful tool at the disposal of EMBs, political parties, voters and
all stakeholders and there is a critical need to embed social media throughout the
electoral cycle. But it needs monitoring and management.
“We cannot deal with digital media as the preserve of EMBs alone. We need
collaborative efforts and partnerships, and a multi-sectoral and multi-faceted
approach at national, regional and continental levels to address the threats” Mr
Mamabolo said.
The conference identified as a key limitation the lack of guiding principles or legal
and normative frameworks to help govern the use of digital media in elections by all
stakeholders.
“This conference has laid a foundation for further work to be done in developing such
a framework for the continent which can serve as a guideline for all stakeholders.
That is our next challenge and the next chapter of this story,” Mr Mamabolo said.
Contact details for Electoral Commission:
For media queries: Please contact Kate Bapela on 082 600 6386
For media interviews: Please email requests to [email protected]
Contact details for UNDP: Rhulani Lehloka
Tel: 066 307 1827 and Email: [email protected]
CPJ Launches Digital Safety Kit
The Committee to Protect Journalists has launched a new, updated Digital Safety Kit for journalists looking to better protect themselves, their sources, and their information. The kit, produced by CPJ’s Emergencies Response Team, combines six bite-sized safety notes on different topics in an accessible format that is easy to digest.
Journalists often have a public profile and share their contact details to solicit tips. Adversaries looking to access journalists’ data and devices can target them–or a colleague or family member–with phishing attacks in the form of tailored email, SMS, social media, or chat messages designed to trick the recipient into sharing sensitive information or installing malware by clicking on a link or downloading a file. There are many types of malware and spyware which range in sophistication, but the most advanced can grant remote attackers access to the device and all of its content.
To defend against phishing attacks:
Journalists use a wide range of devices to produce and store content and to contact sources. Many journalists, especially freelancers, use the same devices at home as well as at work potentially exposing a vast amount of information if they are lost, stolen, or taken. Encrypt computer hard drives, phones, tablets, and external storage devices, especially if you travel, to ensure that others will not be able to access this information without a password.
To secure your devices:
To encrypt your device:
Journalists can communicate with sources more securely using encrypted messaging apps or software that encrypts email so only the intended recipient can read it. Some tools are easier to use than others. Encryption protects the content of messages, but the companies involved can still see the metadata, including when you sent the message, who received it, and other revealing details. Companies have different policies on how they store this data and how they respond when authorities ask for it.
Recommended messaging apps offer end-to-end encryption, meaning that the information is encrypted when it is being sent from the sender to the recipient. Both parties must have an account with the same app. Anyone with access to a device sending or receiving the message or to the password of the account linked to the app can still intercept the message content. Examples of messaging apps with end-to-end encryption include Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram.
Encrypted email is a more secure way of exchanging information with a source or contact. Both parties must download and install specific software in order to send and receive encrypted email.
To use encrypted messaging apps:
To use encrypted email:
Examples of email encryption software include GPG Suite for Mac, GPG4win for Windows and Linux, Thunderbird with the Enigmail extension, and Mailvelope.
Journalists rely on the internet, but may not want to share their online activity with
every internet service provider, internet cafe, or hotel with free WiFi. Criminals, as well as sophisticated adversaries, can steal information or monitor journalists using insecure websites or public WiFi connections.
To use the internet securely:
Many journalists cross borders carrying work and personal information that they may not want others to access on electronic devices. If border guards take a device out of your sight they have an opportunity to search it, access any accounts, copy information, or install spyware. Journalists crossing U.S. borders should consult CPJ’s safety note, “Nothing to Declare.”
Before you travel:
At the border:
If any device is confiscated at the border or anything is inserted into it, assume it is compromised and that any information on it has been copied.
01 July 2019
In the lead up to South Africa’s elections in May, the Electoral Commission of South Africa accredited CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal as an international observer, monitoring press freedom. Quintal found that unlike 1994–when she covered the violence of the country’s first democratic elections journalists in 2019 cited online harassment and threats as the biggest challenge to their work.
Read full article here
The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) is concerned about the arrest of a Mpumalanga, community media editor, last Friday, Etienne Mare.
On 8 May, the day of the elections, Mare posted a video online claiming that he was on his way to vote for a second time after hearing from a female voter that she had been able to vote several times. He wanted to test the IEC’s voting systems. In the video he showed that it was easy to rub off the indelible ink mark on his thumb – a supposed fail-safe system to prevent citizens from voting twice. Mare specifically spoilt this second vote so that it would have no impact on the election results.
The South African Police Service in Mpumalanga tracked down Mare and the voter on Friday. Both appeared in the Baberton Magistrates Court on charges of contravening Section 88(d), voting more than once, Section 89(i)(a) intentionally making a false statement and Section 90(2) infringement of secrecy of the Electoral Commission Act, 1996.
SANEF does not believe that journalists are above the law and we are aware of the fact that it is an offence to vote twice. However, it appears that Mare was genuinely operating in the public interest. He resorted to these measures to conclusively test the IEC systems with the purpose of highlighting possible electoral fraud. The fact that he spoilt his second vote is an indication of the fact that he was not trying to subvert the voting process.
SANEF is looking at ways to offer legal support.
For more information please contact:
