advocacy. They launched two publications to underpin their campaign for more democratic access totelecommunications. The Lived Cost of Communications illustrates the impact of cellphone profiteering in the lives of poor South Africans, and Alternatives to Privatized Telecommunications, presents international alternatives to South Africa’s commercialised provision on internet and phone services. The group also published Zenzeleni: Do it Yourself is an introduction to Community Telecommunications Networks which tells the story of Mankosi, a village co-operative that came together to build and maintain its own telecommunications network and offer affordable communications to the people in rural Eastern Cape. PRINT MEDIA Print media transformation debates intensify During the year, the intense debates unfolding about the state of the print media saw several ANC-aligned senior politicians sharply disparaging the print media for bias and subsequently calling for regulation of the press. The debate on print media transformation deepened when Steven Motale, editor of The Citizen, wrote a piece apologising to President Jacob Zuma about the way the media have treated him. The Editor of New Age, Moegsien Williams and Hlaudi Motsoeneng, SABC’s chief operations officer (COO) concurred and stated that the media acted as an opposition and needed regulation. These views were echoed by the South African Community Party (SAPC), one of the ANC’s Tripartite Alliance, during a conference held in October. 56 So This is Democracy? 2015 The anti-media sentiments also permeated through discussions, during the ANC National General Council meeting at the end of 2015, when party members repeated their calls to set up the Media Appeals Tribunal to regulate the media. At a lunch hosted by President Zuma on October 18, to commemorate Media Freedom Day he raised the issue of the ANC proposal - that Parliament be asked to consider introducing a statutory regulatory body. While it is not clear how the Media Appeals Tribunal will operate, journalists are concerned that it will be used to control the press and submerge the current independent co-regulatory press ombudsman system conducted by the press and members of the public. Julie Reid of the Media Policy and Democracy Project advises that debates around press regulation should be informed by statistical analysis, rather than by hear-say, personal opinion and political interest. In an article titled: Is the ANC right about press regulation? Research says ‘NO’, Reid points to a research report by the MPDP, which sought “to measure the main arguments of critics of the press regulatory system, most notably those of the ANC, against hard statistics, numbers and facts.” “The research report is not to argue a parliamentary investigation of a Media Appeals Tribunal should not take place, but only that if it does, then all involved in such discussions ought to have the relevant correct and empirical evidence available to them during their deliberations, rather than relying solely on conjecture, misinformation and myth,” she writes.2 2 The Daily Maverick, 7 December 2015