CAPE TOWN — The South African media was threatening its own freedom in the “overboard” way it went about its reporting on him, African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma told an international media forum yesterday.

Zuma cited breaches of the right to privacy as an example of how the media went “beyond its bounds” in his case. He said that it had tried and convicted him before he had to answer to a case in court.

Zuma told a lunch meeting of the World Editors’ Forum that he had decided to sue a number of newspapers and a cartoonist to address the issue, “not because I was pushed by other interests, but the interests of respect and dignity to other people”.

“My view is that the media, in that kind of reporting, threatened their own freedom by making people respond and ask ‘what are they doing?’ Then ( people will) ask that laws are made to restrict them.” He said the reporting on his case had damaged him.

“The insensitivity that was show n ! They deal with you as if you got no family, no relatives … My understanding of democracy and freedom is different ,” he said.

Asked by Raymond Louw, chairman of the South African Press Council, why he did not complain via the press ombudsman , Zuma said that f ollowing the route of the ombudsman would result in the media apologising, “and that would be the end of the story”.

With acknowledgements to Chris van Gass and Business Day.