On 1 February 1982, the official Commission of Inquiry into the mass media, appointed in June 1980, under the chairmanship of Justice M. Steyn, tabled its report. The “Steyn Commission” recommended that a general Press Council of journalists should be established by law to regulate entry into the profession and sit in judgement on journalists accused of violating a constitutional code of conduct. The report’s findings and recommendations were widely criticised.
Underlying the continuing controversy over the Press Council was one persistent policy of the National Party: to bend the English press to its will, to find a way to make it conform to the concerns and the world view of the ruling Afrikaners and their apartheid policy. Nationalist Prime Ministers from Malan to Vorster had sought to control the annoying opposition newspapers into being “responsible”.
In his report on the media, Judge MT Steyn found that apartheid South Africa was the subject of a “total onslaught” led by an alliance between the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the media had played an important role, whether directly or indirectly, in the promotion of this campaign against the “legitimate” institutions of the apartheid state. In his conclusions Steyn recommended major legislation to curb the media and thus defend the “legitimate” interests of the apartheid state.
In the early 1980s, already the media was subjected to a number
