Media Monitoring Africa: The Watchdog of the Watchdogs

 

On Monday, we visited Media Monitoring Africa, also known as MMA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ethical and fair journalism that supports human rights. MMA aims to aid in the creation of responsible and quality media in order to enable an informed South African citizenry. MMA offers special interest programs, media profiles, awards, research and funding projects in order to promote their agenda. Their overall mission statement is leading to “citizens, the media, and the powerful respecting a culture of human rights and thereby encouraging a fair and just society.

During our time at MMA, most of the discussion was lead by director William Bird. Mr. Bird explained how the constitution is one of the most powerful tools they use in their work and they are not afraid to criticize the media and the government when they believe they are failing in their relationship with the public. It was interesting to hear all of this so early in the week since the only other place we had visited was the Mail & Guardian earlier that morning, and I think I did not completely grasp the nature of their work initially because I did not have the familiarity and understanding of the South African media system that would come later in the week. However, their work struck me as something unique and important almost immediately, and they ended up being one of my favourite places we visited that week. I kept MMA in the back of my mind throughout the week and even brought them up to a few media organizations such as City Press. At City Press, co-editors informed us that they had been given the Isu Elihle Award for exceptional reporting about children, a program that was explained to us in great detail by MMA only a few days earlier.

It was also an honour to be invited to MMA’s discussion panel at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on Thursday. The topic of the discussion was about media responsibility during and after President Zuma’s tenure and the concept of “Ramaphoria,” the euphoria that came immediately after newly installed President Cyril Ramaphosa took office. They had five panelists from a variety of different media houses, including the newly appointed COO of the SABC who had some interesting opinions about media responsibility past and present. Afterward, we were able to mingle with the organizers and other attendants, all of whom had very interesting backgrounds and stories. It painted a great picture of MMA’s work and mission overall.

I think I initially found this organization to be so fascinating because I could not think of an equivalent in the United States. After watching them in action and learning about their work for a week I believe an organization like this in the United States could be of great benefit. We live in an age where ‘’fake news’’ is considered a threat to democracy itself and the president decries some of the highest-ranking media organizations in the country as fraudulent and the American people do not know who or what to believe. In this case, I think filling the role of the “watchdog of the watchdogs” could prove to be a great help to the United States