usually during moments of chaos or particularly heated debate in the National Assembly. In some cases the visual feed was cut and in others different camera angles chosen to focus on the Speaker and prevent viewers from seeing the actual proceedings in the chamber. New communications ministry causes concern When President Zuma won his seceon term as president and announced his new cabinet on 25 May 2014, he also announced the new Ministry of Communications. BROADCASTING Proposal to licence journalists at odds with media freedom in a democratic South Africa During the annual Radio Days conference at Witwatersrand University on 3 July 2014, SABC acting chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng proposed journalists should be required to register for a licence to practice, in the same way doctors and lawyers do. Journalists who act unprofessionally, can then be stripped of their licences. The South African National Editors’ Forum roundly condemned the proposal pointing out that it would clearly impact negatively on media freedom in South Africa. It is clearly at odds with media freedom and democracy and signals a move towards that adopted in many dictatorships and authoritarian countries, where journalists are forced to register and obtain licences to work so governments have more control over how news is gathered and published. The media has already established regulatory mechanisms, including an ombudsman and a retired High Court judge (as the head of the Press Council’s Appeal panel) to deal with journalistic practice that breaches the professional code of conduct. It is concerning that the public broadcaster is grouped with organisations whose mandate is to positively promote South Africa and further the South Africa “brand”. He split the previous Department of Communications in two: the Ministry of Telecommunications and Postal Services responsible for the technology industry and the post office; and the Ministry of Communications responsible for “overarching communication policy and strategy, information dissemination and publicity as well as the branding of the country abroad.” The new communications ministry will oversee the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC); the broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA); the Media Development and Diversity Agency So This is Democracy? 2014 55