SANEF, Corporate Influence, and the Failure of Liberating Visions

The perception that South Africa's leadership requires immense wealth seems to be reinforced by the South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF). Patrice Motsepe, one of the country's wealthiest individuals, was a guest speaker at its Annual General Meeting on June 25, 2022, and again at a National Editors' Forum Fundraising Gala Dinner on October 17, 2025. The audience was keen to know if he would become president, but he reaffirmed his strong support for the ANC while ruling out a presidential bid, stating that South Africa does not need a "rich man" as its president.

Notwithstanding this disclaimer, his prominence at these events underscores the influence of the extremely wealthy over our editors and society. It reflects a troubling alignment with capital and a failure of visions that are not subservient to corporate elite interests.

Black diamonds shine at SANEF Gala

Motsepe ranks in the top 10 of South Africa’s wealthiest men and the only Black person in the group of male billionaires. Patrice Motsepe Net Worth (mid-2025 estimate): US $3.2 billion according to a recent publication. SANEF’s focus on wealth was not balanced by a concern, in the form of speaker/s who could address them on the  nation's struggles with the living legacies of apartheid. Relying on elites to provide solutions may work for a small group, but it is a limited approach that reinforces the notion that our salvation will come from corporations – not the people.

South Africa remains one of the world's most unequal countries, where:

• The top 10% of households control roughly 95% of all wealth.
• The bottom 50% have more debts than assets.
• The top 0.01% (about 3,500 people) alone own 15% of the total wealth.

This inequality has not decreased in the 26 years since democracy. In this context, the presence of figures like Motsepe at editorial forums is deeply symbolic.

The Missing Solidarity with Palestine

The SANEF gala on October 17, 2025, purportedly commemorated Black Wednesday—the day in 1977 when the apartheid government silenced journalists and their newspapers. However, the spirit of struggle and solidarity was absent. Although baited by Gillian Schutte on the subject of Palestine, Hopewell Radebe avoided it entirely.

This failure echoes a global trend of silencing critical voices. Just three days later on October 20, the National Press Club of Australia abruptly cancelled a scheduled address by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who was set to speak on "The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists". His talk, which explored how Western media amplifies Israeli propaganda, was instead delivered at an alternative venue. His explanation to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed a robustness worth emulating. SANEF, when narrating Palestine, remained  far too silent.

SANEF missed a crucial opportunity to extend solidarity with Palestinian journalists, either by inviting the نقابة الصحفيين الفلسطينيين Palestinian Journalists Syndicate to attend or even acknowledge them to address them online with or without the CAF president being present.

A report published in April by the Watson Institute’s Costs of War project stated that Israel’s war on Gaza is the deadliest conflict on record for journalists, with 232 killed—an average of 13 per month. The report found that this war has killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.

This silence is not new. My small role in highlighting journalistic compromises with power in South Africa has been in the news recently and I will not reiterate it here. Suffice it to say that another Sunday newspaper (unnamed at this stage) stands accused of also violating basic journalistic standards, long upheld on personal matters when it comes to Israeli lobby groups. The famous editor S'thembiso (S'bu) Msomi, a SANEF council member and Editor-At-Large at the Sunday Times, wrote on November 19, 2023—less than a month after October 7 and a month before South Africa launched its genocide case against Israel at the ICJ—that: “As important as Gaza is, we must turn to other issues. In recent weeks our pages have been filled with views and analysis about the Hamas-Israel war, but it’s time to move on.”

The Flawed 'Pragmatism' of Corporate Media

Putting corporate elites like Motsepe on a pedestal, a point he himself cautioned against, is against the best interests of our democracy. The role of the media is to critique power, not celebrate it. When the media becomes the izimbongi (praise-singers) for capital, we lose the ability to tackle hegemonic ideas and power structures from our colonial past, apartheid, and the missed opportunities since 1994.

A consistent theme these days evolves around media autonomy, sustainability, and media integrity. Radebe seemed certain that corporations can be held to account even as they fund media houses. In his critique, he positions corporations as the sole keyholders to our future. His put-downs of “moral outrage" and “borrowed laptops,” and his insistence on "pragmatism," lead directly to collaboration with big capital. His unbridled praise for their role in media sustainability, using phrases like “unapologetic, pragmatic independence,” reveals the ideological space SANEF inhabits. If pragmatism is the only defence of genuine press freedom offered by an editors' forum, we have a serious problem.

Elite corporate control of the media has always been political. In Tell Me No Lies John Pilger, citing Ignacio Ramonet, argues that when a leader pursues democratic reform, corporate media can abandon its watchdog role and use propaganda to destabilise the government, as seen in the 1973 coup against Chile's Salvador Allende.

We know that corporate-funded media rarely challenges its own sponsors. This leads to "soft censorship", where editorial independence is compromised to protect the parent company's financial interests. The ownership of South Africa's main private media is highly concentrated and has been shrinking. The dominant players until recently were:

• Naspers/Media24: Once dominated print and is now expanding in digital publishing.
• Primedia: A dominant force in broadcast media (e.g., 702, 947, KFM, CapeTalk).
• eNCA (HCI): A pivotal player in independent television news.

This pattern is global. Major US conglomerates actively kill stories in the public interest:

• NBC Universal/Comcast limited coverage of a methane leak study due to Comcast's fossil fuel investments.
• Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN) blocked a critical documentary on fracking.
• Sinclair Broadcast Group forced local stations to air climate denial segments.

The corporate structure of modern media creates built‑in “no‑go areas” for mainstream journalism: stories that criticise a parent company’s core investments are routinely down‑played, softened, or omitted entirely. This systemic blind spot shows up in everyday issues—such as land dispossession for mining or climate‑change coverage—where the media protect their own interests and fail to acknowledge that their own leadership is part of the problem.

Big Tech and the Strangulation of Media

The contemporary struggles facing the media are complex. The rise of Big Tech—Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft—will not be a walk in the park. These companies are leaders in AI and control critical resources that are redefining our future.

Google's role, in particular through its ownership of YouTube and other platforms, has not advanced free speech nor information sharing. Instead, it has actively used its platforms to censor dissenting voices. Furthermore, this sweetheart relationship with big capital blinds the media to the need to fight those undermining it. Major digital platforms like Google and Meta have captured most of South Africa's digital ad revenue, starving news publishers of their primary income. A South African regulator's report argues these platforms profit from news content without fairly compensating the creators, threatening the sustainability of the country's news media and its democracy.

Alternative Models Are Being Ignored

The current debate and the arguments by SANEF ignores viable, reader-driven alternatives to the corporate model: The Correspondent (Netherlands): A crowdfunded platform that launched with over €1 million from 60,000 members. El Diario and El Salto (Spain): These are leading digital newspapers fully owned by their journalists and a cooperative of reader-partners (*socios*), who have a direct stake and vote in the organisation. Inside Climate News (US): A donor- and reader-supported non-profit that has won Pulitzer Prizes, proving the model can produce world-class journalism.

The failure of SANEF and popular movements to explore these ideas reflects a lack of vision and creative imagination, a preference for corporate handouts over innovation and resilience.

As we commemorate Black Wednesday we have to think of the generation that battled racist exploitation and oppression. They and we deserve much more than pragmatism; we need a truly liberating and unifying vision. The generation of 1976 were brave and “never on our knees”—a model of courage and resilience we must emulate. 

We must reclaim the spirit of Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, another martyr of that generation, whose clarion call before execution was: "My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. They must continue the fight. Aluta continua."

This is the brave and unapologetic spirit we need for our media. As the example of an African immigrant's son whose participatory style and organising led him to becoming mayor of New York shows. He did not in his campaigning bow to the pressure of billionaire corporate elites  and instead presented a bold vision for the city that is achievable. We can reclaim it for ourselves—again.

* Hassen Lorgat is a media justice activist.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.