Reflections on Journalism in the Transition to Democracy (Report from South Africa‪)‬

New democracies pose a particular challenge for journalists. They are vulnerable and sometimes shaky. One wants them to work and, therefore, one is seeking to define not just what constitutes high-quality and interesting journalism but also how one can best contribute to helping democracy take root. In South Africa, journalists by and large emerged from many years of fighting against state, corporate, and political pressures under apartheid in the 1990s with a fierce commitment to independence. This sentiment was often strongest, predictably, in those institutions that had suffered the most political interference, such as the state broadcaster and the Afrikaans press, both of which had served largely as mouthpieces for the apartheid government. But what does independence mean in a young democracy, which is going to be flawed, troubled, and uncertain? Do criticism and scrutiny need to be tempered to promote the very institutions that gave media and journalists their freedom? Does one suspend one's harshest words to give a neophyte government an opportunity to find its feet? Does one hold the new authorities to higher standards than their predecessors, who after all were authoritarian and corrupt, or does one accept lower standards because they are new and inexperienced? Does one serve democracy best by putting the government under unrelenting scrutiny or by allowing it a honeymoon period? Does one take the opportunity to assert one's newly won right to make as much noise as possible?