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CAPE TOWN — South African President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday hit out at the South African media for always reporting the negative while neglecting the positive. The media has been concentrating on “opposite of the positive,” Zuma told a group of journalism students from the Tshwane University of Technology who were invited to attend a joint Parliament sitting in Cape Town. Too much negative reporting makes people dislike their country, Zuma noted.
“When in South Africa, every morning you feel like you must leave this country because the reporting concentrates on the opposite of positive,” said Zuma.
He said too much negative reporting made him feel like fleeing this country at times. The media, Zuma said, should serve the public interests instead of those of their owners.
He voiced regret that powerful media owners and their commercial interests dictate how stories get told in South Africa.
Newspapers are run as businesses and their desire for profits leads to stories being tailored in a way that sell copies, Zuma said.
He criticized the media for failing to inform the public or building the country’s image but was merely chasing profits.
Zuma said education remained the biggest challenge to transforming the country, but he questioned what the media were doing to explore the country’s education challenges.
However, he said the media failed to report how the legacy of apartheid continues to affect South Africa today.
“The reporting must help society to be informed, but also in a decent fashion, that’s the point we (the government) are making,” said Zuma. – Xinhua.
Online Reporter