Listen to defenders of Jacob Zuma, and to JZ himself; you might imagine that “the media” had committed unspeakable crimes, and stood accused of corruption and rape. Wars ­ listen to George Bush ­ are ostensibly fought for noble ideals like “freedom”, but that does not always extend to freedom of expression.

Recently a friend took up a post in New York as correspondent at the United Nations (UN) for a new television satellite channel, so I suggested he report for work in a flak jacket. His employer is now al-Jazeera International, soon to start broadcasting in English, and the US has been ­ let’s be polite ­ a little careless about shooting up the Arabic channel’s offices. In 2001 a cruise missile destroyed their bureau in Kabul, while in 2003 an American jet fired a missile into their office in Baghdad.

Then we discovered that last year British Prime Minister Tony Blair apparently talked Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, capital of western-friendly Qatar. The allegation is based on a transcript of a Bush-Blair conversation in April 2004 ­ at the time of the US assault on Fallujah when Washington was furious at al-Jazeera’s coverage from the city.

The White House tried to shrug this off as “outlandish”, while Downing Street at first dismissed it as George’s joke. But the Daily Mirror, which revealed the crazed idea, was threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act and a public servant was charged with “damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations”.

The Official Secrets Act to cover up a joke? Not even Bush’s sense of humour is that awful. Or the threat of jail for revealing a joke in the UK? That is what happens in dictatorships. It is also, of course, a classic example of shooting the messenger ­ though the phrase is usually understood metaphorically, rather than requiring jets and rockets.

But there is no reason for South Africans to be complacent. Late last year we had some choice examples in our own backyard ­ with the crucial difference that no one was actually blown up, or even threatened with death. Here, ironically, it has tended to be one messenger “shooting” another messenger.

The first example was a sinister blast from the past. When mass graves were found in Namibia, Tony Weaver of the Cape Times was quick to dispel the “mystery” by revealing that in the “nine-day war” of April 1989 some captured Swapo fighters had been executed. He had personally witnessed, and filmed, one mass grave with at least 40 guerrillas, many of whom, “had neat bullet holes in the back of their heads”. *1 Die Burger published an article effectively calling Weaver a liar, and then refused to publish a letter from him. Die Burger’s ombudsman backed up this censorship, citing the books of Peter Stiff, an apologist for the old defence force.

While old habits (and propaganda) die hard, there are also new pressures on the freedom of expression. The most disturbing was the case of Business Day columnist Xolela Mangcu, who resigned from the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) after claiming that its CEO, Olive Shisana, appeared to bow to pressure from ministers who wished to muzzle his public writing.

Disagreement between politicians and journalists, a clash that appears to be immemorial, it is at its most extreme a battle over censorship. When messengers turn on their own colleagues, however, this amounts to self-censorship, which in a way is more insidious.

Democracy does not automatically guarantee genuine freedom of expression, or even adherence to the notion. There will always be enemies of free speech. Often, like Bush, they are the very ones who proclaim their faith the loudest.

Some conflicts remain constant, like that between mammon and truth. This led to an early resignation by a Fair Lady editor over suppression of an article for commercial reasons. Another is news coverage at the SABC, where compliant attitudes to power seem to be reasserting themselves. If the media learnt only one thing from our past, surely it should be: don’t ever kowtow to politicians.

Whether sanitising the past (Die Burger) or policing the present (Shisana), why on earth do the politicians dirty work for them?

When al-Jazeera first went on air and infuriated despotic regimes throughout the Arab world, the US hailed the station as a beacon of freedom. Unfortunately, freedom of speech means allowing points of view that you don’t like. Al-Jazeera, alone, has been banned from Iraq for “bias”.

Meanwhile, it has also been revealed that the current US government paid (bribed) US journalists to write favourable reports, and more recently funded Iraqi journalists to print, under their own name, propaganda written by the Pentagon. Thus the Bush “freedom” mantra seems to be: if you can’t bomb ’em, ban or buy ’em.

In SA, where such freedoms were so recently won, those rights of expression should be guarded more proudly than by Bush or Blair.

Especially by the messengers.

• Rostron is a freelance writer.

With acknowledgements to Brian Rostron and the Business Day.