Windhoek
Attorney General Sackey Shanghala says although there is media freedom in the country, there is a need for measured, level and objective reporting by journalists.
Shanghala explained that as public figures, they are sometimes lampooned and their characters defamed in the name of media freedom.
He told parliamentarians last week that anytime they talk about objective reporting, they are faced with ridicule and insults through faceless and nameless columns and part of caricatures galore.
“You are then characterised as attacking the media, particularly if you use the analogy of regulation of professions such as the medical and legal profession,” said Shanghala.
“Any form of accountability, other than self-regulation, is seen as being an affront attack upon media freedoms.”
In other words, Shanghala said, one should think about anything, except the issue of regulation of the media.
“[There] is no response from the other side in the form of some intellectual rationale – just the threat of your character being hung out there as an undemocratic person. This cannot be correct.”
“Let us therefore open our minds to some reason. Imagine, if whistleblower and access to information laws were promulgated? We will be slaughtered willy-nilly.”
Shanghala stressed that as public office-bearers, they would be so naked and even if that is ok, those who write about the public figures must also have a responsibility and be regulated.
According to him, the Editor’s Forum of Namibia where the media ombudsman has no teeth is an ineffective system.
“One struggles to relate a case in which the media ombudsman has taken a journalist or media house to order. Individuals have had more success in courts of law such as the Founding President Sam Nujoma and Matthew Shikongo.”
He noted that as public figures they are democrats and believe in the discourse and are not shy to be unpopular, however, it leaves much to be desired how the media is engaged on the matter of regulation of the fourth estate.
Responding to Shanghala, Information and Communication Technology Minister Tjekero Tweya maintained his earlier announced stand that although an access to information law will be introduced, a form of regulation and monitoring on how the information is used will be coupled with the new law.