Ms Gillian Schutte’s recent article, “Celebrating Elitism: The Gala of Gatekeepers and Its Impact on Media Freedom,” offers a fiery, uncompromising, and ultimately impractical critique of the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and its annual fundraiser gala dinner. 

Her indictment, that SANEF is hypocritical for “crying about the erosion of truth while thanking the very architects of economic inequality”, is rhetorically potent but falls apart when subjected to historical context and the brutal economic realities of sustaining journalism in the 21st century.

Ms. Schutte’s argument is based on a romantic, yet utterly divorced-from-reality, notion that a robust media can be sustained purely on moral outrage and “borrowed laptops,” rejecting any association with the commercial forces that shape our economy. This stance ignores the fundamental truth of South Africa’s media history: journalism has always been intertwined with, and often funded by, the commercial sector. The real measure of integrity is not the source of the donation, but the unflinching quality of the reporting that follows.

The idea that corporate influence automatically sacrifices journalistic quality is historically inconsistent, particularly in South Africa. For decades, the ownership structures of major print media were an open secret. As far back as the apartheid era, Anglo American Corporation, the very kind of mining-finance conglomerate Schutte seems to castigate, controlled the Argus Printing & Publishing Company, which owned influential titles like The Star.

This control was exercised through complex, interlocking shareholding structures, a powerful component of what was known as “South Africa Inc.” Yet, within these corporately owned structures, many journalists, editors, and photographers fought to expose the regime’s brutality and corruption. 

The quality of reporting was maintained not because of the beneficence of the owners, but because of the ethical integrity and bravery of the practitioners who fought their own gatekeepers. The control ended in the 1990s as Anglo divested, but the period proves that journalistic quality is a product of professional courage, not philanthropic purity.

To suggest that accepting a donation table from a bank today is morally bankrupt while ignoring that, historically, the very bricks and mortar of many newsrooms were funded by mining capital is to employ selective outrage. The relationship between big business and media has always been transactional, often through advertising, sometimes through direct ownership, and now, necessarily, through fundraising.

Ms. Schutte argues that South Africa “needs a press that can survive without begging at the feet of banks and morally bankrupt billionaires.” While this may be a charming sentiment, it fails to offer a viable alternative to the economic crisis crippling the media in this country and globally.

The media industry is under existential threat. The economic downturn has slashed advertising budgets, and the lion’s share of digital ad spending has shifted irrevocably to global tech giants. Traditional news outlets, already weakened by this double punch, have reduced their financial support for bodies like SANEF, forcing the organisation to seek alternative funding. The annual gala, commemorating the tragic suppression of media freedom on Black Wednesday in 1977, is not a celebration of elitism; it is a strategic, vital defence of journalism’s future.

What exactly is SANEF begging for? 

Resources for its Media Defence Fund. This fund provides critical legal assistance to journalists facing Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP suits), protection orders, and intimidation, often from the very same corporate entities or state organs whose excesses are being exposed.

AmaBhungane v The Moti Group: Who stood up to provide ethical and legal weight in this crucial case, which pitted investigative journalists against a powerful, well-resourced private sector entity?

Riot Hlatshwayo v Mpumalanga Police Commissioner: Who defended the journalist facing state-led intimidation?

SANEF should accept money to create a legal shield for the very journalists who might later investigate the donor. This is not hypocrisy; it is unapologetic, pragmatic independence. The money is used to fund the mechanism that holds the powerful, be they government, miners, or bankers, to account. It ensures that the “defenders of media freedom” that Schutte admires, “writing on borrowed laptops,” are not silenced by a bill they can’t afford.

Dissecting the Double Standard

Ms. Schutte writes for a publication, Independent Media, which is itself sustained by corporate advertising. One must ask: has Independent Media torn up every corporate advertising contract from the mining sector, the banking sector, or any other entity that its journalists might potentially investigate?

The core revenue stream for virtually all commercial media, including the newspapers that employ the critics, has historically been advertising, which is the purchase of space by these “architects of economic inequality.” If advertising revenue from a bank is acceptable (which it is, and always has been), why is a donation to a non-profit legal defence fund suddenly a moral surrender?

The reality is that major companies, including banks like Standard Bank and communications giants like Vodacom, also fund prestigious journalism awards (such as the Standard Bank Sikuvile Awards). These awards incentivise and celebrate ethical, high-quality, hard-hitting journalism. To suggest that these sponsorships inherently corrupt the journalism is to insult the integrity of every single journalist who has ever won one of these accolades while simultaneously reporting fearlessly on their sponsors’ industries.

Schutte states that “truth isn’t a product to be funded or branded. It’s a sword of truth.” This is stirring imagery, but a sword needs to be maintained, sharpened, and, crucially, sheathed in a legal defence fund when a billion-rand corporation comes swinging back with lawyers.

The defence of media freedom is not cheap. Training, policy advocacy, research, and, most expensively, litigation, all require significant capital. SANEF should be unapologetic for seeking resources from all available avenues to ensure its survival and efficacy.

If the choice is between having a fully funded, legally capable SANEF that sometimes rubs shoulders with the powerful at a fundraising gala, or a pure, unblemished SANEF that is financially irrelevant and unable to protect a single journalist from a frivolous SLAPP suit, the choice for media freedom is clear. The former offers a practical shield, the latter, only an empty purist slogan.

Journalism’s integrity lies not in the purity of its financial ledger, but in the unflinching content published in the face of financial pressure. My understanding of SANEF’s mission is that it wants to ensure that journalists have the means to keep publishing that content, regardless of who bought a table at their gala dinner. That is a pragmatic defence of truth that warrants applause, not condemnation.

* Hopewell Radebe is the former City Press news editor and SANEF projects manager. He writes in his personal capacity.

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

*** EDITOR’S NOTE: Gillian Schutte has subsequently responded to this reply originally published on SANEF’s website. Schutte’s response can be read here.

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