State of the media in Southern Africa - 2003 remarkable function as mediator between the public and the constituted powers through debates, reports, letters from readers and interactive programmes on radio and television. More than any other year, 2003 was very productive in terms of the questioning of the judicial system, corruption, organized crime, discrimination and increased social inequalities by the media and the public. It’s important, however, to refer to cases where media rights were violated and forced to appeal to regulating bodies or the courts. In one such case, Mediafax was prosecuted for disobeying a CSCS deliberation. The claims of defamation or insufficient investigation of the facts didn’t matter much in the case. Many of the arguments were resolved between the editors and the aggrieved parties, ending with the latter giving up initiating judicial proceedings. The slowness with which the regulating instances deal with judicial lawsuits concerning abuse of freedom of the press and defamation discourage any judicial action against the media. On the other hand, the common citizen doesn’t usually take any precautions to protect him/herself due to ignorance of their rights. It is important to note that an eventual need to revise the related defamation legislation has not been seriously considered. Access to Information In 2003, recognition for the need to update current legislation, produced a lively debate around access to information. Draft legislation in this regard already exists. It has been criticised however for concentrating more on access to information by journalists and not taking into consideration the people’s right to information that facilitates their human rights and basic needs. Broadcasting Efforts are being made to restructure radio and television in the public sector. A preliminary report proposes to establish an independent authority to regulate broadcasting. MISA promoted a debate on this issue in which the current regulating body, the CSCS, in spite of its being a state body and yet independent from the government, was considered to be responsible for all media. Arguments against the CSCS were that they only deal with media products and do not have a mandate nor the capacity to regulate frequencies or licences, which are the jurisdiction of other Government regulating authorities. In spite of this discussion, it was generally agreed that editorial and operational autonomy of public, private and community broadcasting, must be ensured and, if there were an alteration of the press law, the liberal character may be lost in prejudice of the media themselves. Class Fraternity The meaning of class, among IO’s practitioners can be measured in terms of organizations and partnerships. In 2003, an association of journalistic companies emerged, in a time were the immediate interest was to legitimate the CSCS stability. The advances expected on this year, concerning the establishment of a professional wallet, did not occur, just as last year ended without an “editors association”, in spite of being discussed their existence for a long time. In November, a code of conduct was agreed for electoral coverage. While this was a commendable initiative it unfortunately didn’t produce the desired results. Firstly, because the code was launched in the middle of the electoral campaign after editorial offices had already formed their own agendas and secondly, because some of the subscribers of the code didn’t adhere to its contents in their stories on the elections. So This Is Democracy? 2003 55 Media Institute of Southern Africa