,QWURGXFWLRQ It was a traumatic and tumultuous year for media freedom in South Africa’s nearly two-decade-old democracy. Journalists, reeling from the tumult of 2012’s Protection of State Information Bill (widely known as the Secrecy Bill), realised that worse was to come when the increasingly insecure ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) reaffirmed its commitment to a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) at its December 2012 Mangaung policy conference. 1 If implemented, this would constitute political oversight of the media. The year 2012 kicked off with presentations by editors, civil society groups, government and the ANC to the Press Freedom Commission (PFC) about regulation of the print media in January. By the middle of the year, the mood veered onto an unprecedented path when the ANC staged a mass march against a painting of President Jacob Zuma, and called for the boycott of a Sunday paper, City Press. ANC spokesperson, Jackson Mthembu urged party supporters not to buy the newspaper. “Don’t buy City Press, don’t buy,” he urged them. Shortly after this it became clear that the draconian Secrecy bill was inches away from being passed. Then the MAT idea which journalists thought was dead as press reforms had replaced it, realised they’d been mistaken. By January 2013, Reporters Without Borders downgraded South Africa for freedom of information. It lost its place in the top 50 positions in the world by ten notches, hurtling down from place 42 to 52. So what happened in SA vis-à-vis press freedom, freedom of information, and censorship? 6HFUHF\ELOO3DLDDQG1DWLRQDO .H\3RLQWV$FW 1 The Mangaung December 2012 resolution read: “…the ANC reaffirms the need for Parliament to conduct an inquiry on the desirability and feasibility of MAT within the framework of the country’s Constitution...” The most serious of all 2012’s developments was the fact that the Secrecy Bill was passed in Parliament. Two sets of laws enable the free flow of information. First, Section 16 of the Constitution guarantees a free media under the principle of freedom of expression: Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes a) freedom of the press and other media; b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas; c) freedom of artistic creativity; and academic freedom and freedom of scientific research. However, no right is absolute, and so freedom of expression, for instance, is balanced against other rights such as “human dignity”. Second, the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) of 2000 – which stipulates that information, should flow freely, in the interests of transparency and democracy. The Secrecy Bill stands in direct contradiction to Paia. If the Secrecy Bill were enacted, it would prevent certain stories from being published as it allows a broad range of information to be classified as secret. The bill, up for enactment in 2013, does not protect a journalist or whistleblower from being jailed for passing on and publishing classified informa- 6R7KLVLV'HPRFUDF\"