No famine in countries with press freedom

 The debate on press freedom has been a critical part of the national conversation in recent weeks. In this context it may be worth turning to the work of the great Indian economist, Amartya Sen, who changed the way that we understand famines –and was able to draw a fascinating link between press freedom and famine.

For him the topic of famine was not one of mere academic interest. As a nine-year-old boy he lived through the Bengal famine of 1943 and was deeply shaped by the enormous suffering that he had witnessed. As an adult his research on famine threw up an intriguing result. Sen found that in no country was famine the result of a shortage of food. In each of the famines that he studied he found that the real problem was the distribution of food. He also found that in each case the problems with the distribution of food were a result of another problem – a lack of press freedom.

In fact Sen found that there has never been a famine in the recent times in any country that has press freedom. The reason for this is simple. A free press will always report things like food shortages, resulting in pressures on governments to take effective action to resolve the situation.

In the light of Sen’s research the attack on press freedom is not just an attack on human rights. It is also an attack on the material interests of the poor. If tenderpreneurs and their theft and shoddy work are not exposed in the media, the plunder of the public purse will continue unabated. If shack fires are not exposed as being a result of state failure to provide electricity, people will continue to burn every winter. If the shocking wages paid to police officers are not exposed, we’ll continue to have a corrupt police force.

The perceived attack on press freedom has done massive damage to the international standing of our country. The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article titled ‘The Dark Ages Return to South Africa’. In that article Raymond Louw, a former anti-apartheid journalist and long time activist for freedom of expression is quoted as saying that: “This is worse than anything under apartheid. The powers the government is taking to curb the press are far wider now and the powers given to the SS Minister—the Minister for State Security—are far greater."

All of the glory in which our country was covered after the World Cup has been stripped away by this attack on press freedom. But the liberal commentators who have focused their criticism of the attack on press freedom on the damage that it is doing to brand South Africa across the world are themselves making a real error of judgment. They are quite right to stand up for press freedom but quite wrong to do so on the basis that an attack on press freedom will undermine our international standing. This is a neo-colonial argument and will, quite rightly, be labeled and dismissed as such.

We shouldn’t reject the attack on press freedom because Obama won’t like it or because human rights organizations in England or France won’t like it. We should reject it because it is an attack on our basic freedoms and one that will damage the interests of the poor the most.

The media itself has an important role to play. It must refuse to be intimidated and really challenge itself to look beyond the interests of elites and to try and represent the poor more fairly. Civil society will raise its voice no doubt but the other constituency that has great credibility to take this attack on media freedom head-on are the popular organisations and ordinary people – the trade unions, the religious groups and the community organizations and social movements.

A campaign in support of press freedom led by the organizations of the working class and the poor has a particularly great chance of always keeping issues around press freedom at the forefront of the national debate.