We have to re-examine the role and responsibilities of African media coverage of the recent 30 June protest marches in South Africa.
We have seen this happen before, in the 1980s. South Africa had one of the biggest concentrations of foreign correspondents. It was a turbulent time.
When journalists “parachute in” to cover a story, they arrive with luggage: deadlines, editors, pre-written frames and often very little history.
That is exactly what we have seen some senior Nigerian and Zimbabwean journalists, among others, do with their coverage of the March and March protests against undocumented migration and the failure of enforcement in South Africa.
It is time to say it directly: we are disappointed but not shocked. The coverage has been predictable, biased and monotonous. It has missed the story.
The core purpose of the marches, from the perspective of the organisers and the thousands who joined, was not to attack people. It was to hold the government accountable and to demand enforcement of the law. That is the context that has been stripped out of most reports.
For years, communities have watched public services collapse under pressure. Clinics with four-hour queues. You budget at least eight hours to go to Bara or any public hospital. Schools with 60 learners in one classroom. Construction sites where labour law is ignored. Undocumented African labourers paid slave wages. Homes built on land with no services.
People are asking a simple question: if there are laws about immigration, work permits and business licensing, why are they not applied?
The march was framed by its organisers as a civic action. Memorandums were handed to schools, municipalities, Home Affairs and the Presidency. One memorandum was delivered to a school in January. The demand was simple: enforce the existing law, document who is here and create a system that works for both citizens and documented migrants.
That demand was largely absent from international reports. Instead, the story was reduced to one word: “xenophobia”. Afrophobia. What about Europeans? The Chinese? Asians?
That is not journalism. That is labelling. South Africans are not necessarily xenophobic. They have coexisted with legal immigrants for decades.
The brief was simple. Fly in. Find the marchers and their placards. Find one angry quote: “Abahambe”. Add a reaction quote from an NGO talking head. File the story. Fly out.
There was no history of how South Africa’s immigration system became backlogged. No explanation of court orders that have not been implemented. No stories about how white capitalists and families exploit and abuse undocumented migrants. No mention of the thousands of asylum applications pending for five to eight years. No data on how many people want to return home but are stranded because African embassies cannot process documents and because there is no funded voluntary return programme.
There was no question put to the government: why has “belonging to all who live in it” been interpreted to mean no rules at all, including for those who hold fraudulent papers and do not qualify to be here? Has this not created chaos and lawlessness? No government spokesperson or minister has come forward to explain this constitutional clause.
Without that background, the audience is left with caricature rather than understanding.
For more than six decades, much of so-called African journalism on South Africa has pushed the same paradigm: the “man bites dog” narrative. It is black-on-black violence. Tribalism. Self-hate.
Conflict sells. And the easiest conflict to sell is: South Africa versus “the rest of Africa”.
So, instead of asking hard questions, the coverage defaults to accusation. Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the march organiser, was filmed but was rarely interviewed at length about motives, policy proposals or what a lawful system would look like.
She has made time for one-on-one interviews. But these often resemble interrogation sessions rather than conversations driven by curiosity, interest and efforts to trace the spark.
The media did not ask: “What would a working immigration system do for migrants themselves?” Instead, they asked: “Why do you hate foreigners?” They demanded to know: who are your political allies? Are you a CIA spy funded by Israel?
That is not an interview. That is a cross-examination with a verdict already written.
At the same time, the outdated and primitive view of a “United Africa” was pushed as the only moral position. Unity is a noble goal. But unity without law, without jobs, without housing, without accountability and amid failing African states becomes a slogan.
In this coverage, that slogan appears to apply only to South Africa. Africans can unite only when they flood into and rally against South Africa. This modern and most sophisticated economy on the continent, it is implied, must be run into the ground to resemble Nigeria. South Africa is treated as a political orphanage for displaced Africans, with the expectation that it must absorb people without question. Yet few journalists or editors ask why other African governments are not creating conditions that allow their citizens to stay or to return with dignity.
This suggests that some journalists are constrained and timid in their own countries. There are subjects they cannot discuss or cover.
In the midst of it all, the camera remained focused on the crowd. The implication was clear: the problem is the people marching, not the policy vacuum that made the march inevitable.
That is a failure of purpose. Journalism should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. In this case, it comforted the powerful and afflicted ordinary citizens who are asking for law enforcement.
It is for this reason that nobody asked where the R600-million suddenly came from. Where have all these police officers been when it comes to enforcing the law? Why were they demobilised when the problem persists? What is the programme going forward?
The situation is worse with some local African journalists.
We must be honest: many are compromised. Not all but enough to damage credibility. The pressure is real. They report to please the expectations of media owners. And many media owners have a direct interest in protecting and preserving the status quo — in advertising from government, in access, in business partnerships that rely on stability narratives.
So local reporters self-censor. They think of protecting their jobs and gaining promotion before they write without fear or favour.
The result is coverage that is even more hollow and timid than the parachute press. It repeats government talking points. It quotes the same anti-illegal immigrants NGOs and so-called Human Rights Commission. It avoids the street, the township meeting, the clinic queue where people are actually living this crisis.
This is why audiences no longer trust the news. Because they can see what is happening in their community and then read something completely different the next day.
There is a new Africa story that needs telling and it is not being told. It is the story of people who are disillusioned. People who voted for liberation and got load-shedding. People who were promised jobs and got tenders. People who believe in Pan-Africanism but also believe in borders, laws and reciprocity. People have had enough of political leadership that has betrayed their aspirations both in South Africa and across the continent.
The African Union has failed to rise to the occasion. Ambassadors are here for gala dinners, long lunches and shopping trips in Sandton. There is no continental migration policy with teeth. There is no reintegration fund. There is no pressure on member states to create jobs so that migration becomes a choice rather than an act of survival.
That is the real story: a governance failure at national and continental level. But it is easier to fly in, film a march and leave.
If the media distorts or undermines the genuine concerns and complaints of indigenous people, then it has failed in its most basic duty.
People are not marching because they hate [Others]. They are marching because they feel unheard. Very few leaders live among ordinary citizens. Many feel betrayed and are gatvol because the law is not being applied equally. Because “it belongs to all who live in it” cannot mean “there are no rules for anyone”.
Journalism should be the bridge between that frustration and the government that must respond. Instead, too much of it has become a megaphone for one side and a mirror for the other.
South Africans deserve better. Migrants deserve better.
We need African reporting that is not predictable, biased or monotonous. We need reporting that tells the whole story about law, accountability and a continent that must do better.
Until then, the parachutes will keep dropping, the story will continue to be missed and trust between the media and the public will keep eroding.
