tacked by demonstrators and police and photographers had their pictures deleted and in some instances their equipment taken away. Media Sustainability The media are still continuing to contend with the economic onslaught from the so-cial media which is putting pressure on the viability of newspapers and resulting in the worrying retrenchment of staff which has had a negative impact on the compre-hensiveness of news coverage. But the impact on circulations – and advertising revenue – has been spectacular. The circulation of the Sunday Times, once the country’s biggest seller, is down to about half of the more than 500 000 copies it was selling some years ago. Most other papers are recording decreases in circulation. Some people predict the demise of newspapers, though others believe there will always be a niche market for the industry. The industry is struggling with counter-measures to deal with the situation but no one appears to have found a formula that works and improves profitability, though gains have been made in the electronic market place. In addition to the unease among staff as a result of retrenchments resulting from the effects of social media, further staff distress has occurred in the major English-language newspaper houses following reports of a high turnover of editorial staff, among them editors, and allegations of improper management interference in the editorial conduct of newspapers. SANEF has expressed its concern over the dismissal of The Citizen editor Steven Motale over what he described as an issue of improper interference by management in editorial matters, and management seemingly ending internal disciplinary hearings. 84 So This is Democracy? 2016 Government leaders continue to call the press “the opposition” and adopt practices that obstruct the press and prevent the public from being informed. In October, Independent Media, publishers of a large number of major daily and Sunday papers, announced its withdrawal from the Press Council of South Africa, which administers a self-regulatory adjudication process of complaints of contraventions of the Press Code levelled against publications. Independent complained that in overhauling its structure after a lengthy and wide-ranging consultation process, the Council had scrapped a requirement that complainants consent to a waiver of their rights to institute private litigation against media houses, resulting in an unacceptable increase in the company’s legal costs. The Council removed the waiver when advised by a retired Constitutional Court judge that it was unconstitutional. Independent appointed its own internal Press Ombudsman and so-called Media Press Appeals Tribunal to receive and adjudicate complaints from the public about editorial content published in the group’s titles, including The Star, The Sunday Independent, The Cape Argus, Pretoria News and Isolezwe.