White+journalists+left+out+in+the+cold,+Fiona+Forde,+Sunday+Independent


=White journalists left out in the cold =


 * Fiona Forde, Sunday Independent, Johannesburg, 24 February 2008**

I'm white and I write. And that's why I was not welcome at Friday's gathering of black journalists in Johannesburg at which Jacob Zuma was a guest speaker.

Abbey Makoe, the chairman of the recently revived Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ), had made it crystal clear: all scribes of African descent - black, Indian or coloured - had been invited to hear the ANC president talk. But it was a strictly "no whites" event. I was aware I didn't fit the description, but I was keen to test its boundaries.

I'm Irish, I explained to Makoe. And I often report for foreign media.

"It's not a continental thing," he replied. "It's universal."

We were once the blacks of Europe, I chided. But wit was not welcome either this week where the FBJ was concerned. Whites were the new blacks, and that was that.

Makoe, the political editor of the SABC, had breathed life back into the 12-year-old forum because he feels black journalists are being disadvantaged in South Africa today.

He expressed concern for colleagues who he says are being forgotten as transformation continues. Many blacks are left on the benches while whites continue to run with the ball. The culprits: the owners and editorial managers of the country's media houses. And that's why he rallied his troops to the Sandton Sun on Friday under the banner of the FBJ. And he did it in his personal capacity. Makoe's heart may be in the right place. And if black journalists, like advocates and many other professionals, feel the need to come together, so be it. It's a bad indictment and a sad reflection on the present state of affairs. But like any other group, the FBJ is free to associate. And one could only wish them well if their aim is to bring black journalists in from the cold.

But Makoe has made one grave error. Friday's gathering, by its very nature, was a public event and to raise the colour bar as high as he did was to cast a racial slur on whites. Because there was no programme to discuss the internal workings of the FBJ.

There was no agenda to tackle the issues of disadvantaged black journalists. And the guests weren't strictly media either. One man I spoke to had nothing to do with journalism. He had simply come to hear the ANC president talk behind closed doors to a black audience.

Makoe wouldn't hear of it when I put it to him like that. I just wasn't getting the hang of it, he told me over and over again. A black journalist tried where I had failed. But he wasn't getting it either, it seemed. Jody Kollapen of the Human Rights Commission put it well when he said that what Makoe is suggesting is that white journalists are incapable of having black journalists' interests at heart.

If the aim of the FBJ is to advance the interests of black journalists, does membership really have to be colour-coded? Only Makoe, as chairperson of the FBJ, can decide that. But the irony is that it's not Makoe's peers who the FBJ appears to have issues with. It's media management, who for the most part are black, coloured or Indian. The same race groups who sailed past the two security guards on Friday (one of whom was white, incidentally) and left their white counterparts out in the cold.


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4270836**

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