The first phase of the South African Human Rights Commission's hearing into "racism in the media" ended last week with clear signs of a split in the upper echelons of the media along racial lines.
Even before the formal start of the hearings, held over a five-day period, there were indications that a racial breach was threatening in the ranks of editors.
The most important of these signs was a statement issued late last month by five black editors, in which they declared that they would take part in the hearings irrespective of whether or not the Human Rights Commission (HRC) withdrew the subpoenas it had issued ordering nearly 40 editors to appear before the pending hearing or face possible imprisonment for up to six months. The Human Rights Commission is a statutory institution with coercive powers.
The black editors' declaration cut across an earlier stand by the South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF), a non-racial organisation formed to foster unity and common action between editors of different races.
SANEF, believing that the subpoenas issued by the HRC were a threat to press freedom, balked at taking part in the hearings under duress. At the same time, it signalled its willingness to urge editors to attend the hearings voluntarily if the subpoenas were withdrawn.
In the event, after discussions with the HRC, its chairman, the Rev Barney Pityana, agreed to withdraw the subpoenas, and arrangements were made for hearings to take the form of friendly discussions instead of inquisitorial questioning.
However, the five black editors again broke ranks and made a joint submission on the first day of the hearings in which they:
Complained that the media were "largely controlled by white people" and that "by sheer force of numbers" the views of white editors prevailed in the public debate.
Stated that news reports and editorial opinions in the media "often" created the impression that blacks were corrupt and incompetent, thus echoing an earlier complaint from the Black Lawyers' Association and the Black Association of Accountants.
Disagreed that the subpoenas were a threat to freedom of expression, and accused unnamed people of negotiating with HRC "under the pretext" that they spoke on behalf of all editors.
Warned that the imbalance of media products catering for whites and blacks would "harm the national discourse and entrench the marginalisation of the black view".
Two of the five signatories, Kaiser Nyatsumba and Cyril Madladla, edit newspapers owned by Dr Tony O'Reilly, whose Independent Newspapers acquired a major stake in South Africa's newspaper industry in 1994. Mr Nyatsumba accused white editors of assuming that black editors were "black outside but white inside" or coconuts, as they known pejoratively.
The racial divide was further emphasised on the fourth day of the hearings when Khulu Sibiya, the black editor of City Press, repudiated a white colleague in his newspaper company, Naspers.
His colleague, Johann de Wet, disagreed that black editors were powerless, pointing out that the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the most powerful media institution in South Africa, was controlled by blacks. Mr de Wet also pointed out that the Sowetan, the daily newspaper with the largest circulation in South Africa, was edited by a black man and owned by a black-controlled company (as is the Sunday Times, the largest weekend newspaper).
Mr Sibiya, however, declared that he associated himself fully with the declamation by the five editors and asked for his statement to be formally read into the record. Mr Sibiya's repudiation of one of his co-editors in Naspers emphasised the extent to which editors were polarising on racial lines.
His identification with the five black editors was significant for another reason, too. They did not invite him to join them in issuing their declaration because, after reading an editorial on the hearings in his newspaper, they thought that his thinking was in tune with that of the white editors.
If that was so, the pressures generated by the hearings forced him to prove that he was black on the inside as well as the outside.