exiled Zimbabwean editor Abel Mutsakani, who writes for the online service ZimOnline, in Johannesburg on July 23 when he was shot and critically wounded. President Mbeki and some cabinet ministers met with a SANEF delegation to discuss working relations between the media and the Government. A decision has been taken to hold a workshop in 2008 to discuss media complaints about laws clashing with the Constitution and Government complaints about unprofessional journalism. SANEF pursued matters with mobile telephone companies over supplying customers’ call records to police and lawyers. This poses a grave danger that journalists’ confidential news sources could be identified. Each month by SA’s three mobile phone operators receive about 8000 such requests. SANEF is trying to hold a meeting with the Government’s landline phone company, Telkom, which it believes also supplies such information on a much wider scale. The Mail & Guardian weekly newspaper was once again gagged by a court order on July 20 from publishing a story about alleged corruption, abuse of power and intimidation by a senior SABC official. The order was lifted on August 1, by Mr Justice Ferdi Preller who said newspapers had a duty to disseminate news relating to allegations of corruption in public entities. The election of SABC’s new board of governors by a parliamentary committee was severely criticized because of interference by the Presidency. The ANC made a scathing attack on the media in its online publication, ANC Today, by advising readers to treat everything published with “great skepticism”. This was followed by ill-treatment of journalists at the ANC’s 52nd National Conference in December - the press room was nearly a kilometre away from the conference hall. The ANC later apologized. SANEF objected to FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations), applying for a blanket ban on the use of emblems and language describing the 2010 Football World Cup to be hosted by SA, as unwarranted interference in the freedom of papers and broadcasters to publish news about the games. SANEF had earlier associated itself with a World Association of Newspapers protest to the International Rugby Board against its plans to censor coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. The print industry’s self-regulatory Press Ombudsman system, sensitive to Government criticisms about its low profile, decided to become more pro-active in dealing with media issues. Public representation on the adjudication panel was increased and the Press Council was formed. Another new Daily, a tabloid, The Times, published by the Sunday Times group will hit the newsstands soon. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -78- Media Institute of Southern Africa