We know that Jacob Zuma landed himself in some hot water when he let Omar al-Bashir jet off from our shores, lifting his leg and pissing on any number of rule books whilst doing so. It seems al-Bashir’s neighbour to the south, a certain President Salva Kiir, is also a rather distasteful character after he allegedly orchestrated the murder of a journalist who wrote some nasty words about his regime.

If you’re failing to see the link here let’s remember a piece from earlier this week where we saw just how toit buddies SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng and our president seem to be. Hlaudi basically chastised journalists for casting the government in a negative light, this quote from that piece:

“For us, it is important to portray the country in a positive way. Because there are so many good stories that [are] happening. But… especially [with] print media, it’s more negative stories.

“Where are the positive stories? Have you ever seen positive stories leading the headlines?” asked Motsoeneng.

Then this from a News24 story late last year:

President Jacob Zuma on Thursday suggested the media is creating a negative perception of South Africa…

“One of the cultures that we have, is to market our country negatively. And it is important to meet those who create stories, to understand that we need to promote our country.”

To finish let’s see what he had to say regarding the media’s coverage of the xenophobic violence that rocked the country earlier this year. eNCA here:

“When we listen to media who sometimes exaggerate things we might think we have a problem, but its not true,” said Zuma…

‘It’s important that we don’t live in the mentality of the media – all the negative reporting,” he said.

It’s obvious local media that isn’t towing the party line irks Zuma, so how far off are we from seeing a process of intimidation against journalists who report negatively on our governance? Back to that story from South Sudan with al Jazeera carrying this:

Assailants have reportedly shot dead a reporter for the New Nation newspaper in South Sudan in an apparently targeted attack, days after President Salva Kiir allegedly made a thinly veiled threat to target journalists who reported “against the country”…

Julius is the seventh journalist killed this year, in a country devastated by a prolonged conflict between government forces and armed groups…

“This was an intentional killing,” said Oliver Modi, chairman of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan.

Can we expect to see anything like that here at home? We’re obviously quite some way off such horror stories as these, although you have to wonder if public apologies such as THIS hint at a fear of falling foul of Zuma and other top dogs.

One hopes this is a serious stretch but perhaps we should be a little more fearful when Jacob spouts off about the media not playing ball.

[sources:news24&enca&aljazeera]