Opinion

If we had as many vocal and visible champions of free speech, the people's right to know and journalists' rights in the dark 1980s as we have now that the South African media is utterly free and unregulated, we might have saved the lives of many victims of the apartheid state.

Not that I am complaining. It is a compliment to our new democratic society that the post-apartheid generation of journalists believe that there can be no compromise on media freedom and that it isn't a controversial political statement to demand the protection of journalists' rights.

But some of the campaigning by media institutions and journalists around the Hefer Commission is rather misguided.

It may partly be because of a lack of real experience but, in some cases, slightly suspect motives seem to be behind it.

The South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef) was wrong to support the former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy's refusal to give evidence before the Hefer Commission. Members were also wrong when they resisted subpoenas served on other journalists to appear before the commission.

Journalists are not special citizens with special rights. Respect for the rule of law is integral to journalists' ethical code.

Journalists have no right to refuse to give evidence in court or before a judicial commission. This kind of attitude could only serve to undermine the support from the public journalists rely on to do their job properly. At most, we can explain to the courts and the public how damaging it could be for journalism if reporters are forced to become state witnesses in court.

Sometimes journalists have to make deals with sources of important information not to ever make their identity public. Although this kind of deal is dangerous and often abused, it is nonetheless an essential part of getting the truth out. A journalist who does not honour this agreement, will lose his/her own credibility and effectiveness as a reporter and will make it more difficult for other journalists to cultivate sensitive sources.

That was what Sanef and other campaigners should have concentrated on in the case of the Hefer Commission. Journalists should appear before the commission and help it as much as possible to get to the truth, but when it comes to compromising an agreement to secrecy or confidentiality, that journalist should tell the judge that he/she cannot divulge the source and explain the reasons.

Sanef should have spent its energy on lobbying the commission to call the journalists with possible information only after all the other witnesses had given their evidence. There is the possibility that all the information needed would have surfaced that way, and that the journalists' evidence would not be needed.

The case of Munusamy is much murkier. I have great respect for a journalist who goes to great lengths and risks to expose the truth. But Munusamy's way of doing that was problematic: when her own editor refused to run her story (and now we know he had very good reason), she gave it to an opposition paper who quoted as their source "an investigative journalist".

So she went one step closer to being another journalist's source rather than a journalist herself. I would suggest the correct way would have been for her to resign first and present her sensational story under her own name to another paper as a freelance journalist.

Munusamy should appear before the Hefer Commission. She should give the commission as much background and as many facts as she can, and when she feels she cannot reveal confidential sources, she should simply explain that to the judge.

If the judge tries to force her and she is threatened with going to jail, then all journalists should stand up and protest - I will join them.

But she has done her profession a disservice by declaring that her sources have threatened to kill her, just days before Mo Shaik freely admitted before the commission that her main source was him.

She possibly referred to secondary sources who might have threatened her, but that was not made clear and those were not the main sources the Hefer Commission wanted to identify.

On the other end of the scale we have the former editor of City Press, Vusi Mona, who of of his own free will broke a confidence as a journalist. He attended a confidential briefing given by Bulelani Ngcuka and then spilled the beans.

These briefings are also potentially dangerous practices, but nonetheless have become essential in modern journalism.

If a journalist accepts the invitation to go to such a briefing, he/she accepts that he/she will have to respect the confidentiality of the identity of the source. Mona broke that trust and did his profession a great disservice. I hope he stays out of journalism.

Some of our journalists have in recent weeks been crying wolf. One day when we have a real problem, we will look back and say they did us a disservice.

With acknowledgements to Max du Preez and The Star.