THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST

Abstract

Since the demise of apartheid in South Africa, the media landscape has undergone significant shifts that impacted on journalism practice. Among the most important of these shifts was the setting up of a system of self-regulation to ensure ethical journalism in the new free democratic environment. The normative frameworks upon which this system rested have, however, been highly contested, and subjected to much debate. In mounting a defence against what has been seen as ongoing attacks and threats to press freedom, journalists often invoked history to validate their normative positions and to assert their professional values and identities. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with South African journalists to explore their attitudes towards the impact of South African journalism history on current practices and professional ideologies. The aim is to establish the ways in which apartheid history is used to make meaning in post-apartheid professional debates.

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