Freedom in South Africa

Press freedom in South Africa, The history of

Summary

South Africa has a history of controversial legislation regarding the freedom of the press. This article provides a detailed analysis of the history of this struggle for freedom in the Cape, the old Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal.

Media Park in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, is the home of several local publications, including newspapers. Beeld

The history begins with Governor Sir George Yonge granting a monopoly in printing to Messrs Walker and Robertson by the proclamation of 21 July 1800. The result was that the government soon assumed control of the only printing press. The sole publication was the official Gazette. When, two decades later, the first private printing took place, censorship began.

Having discovered that publication of a newspaper was uncontrolled, George Greig, a printer from London, produced the first issue of the South African Commercial Advertiser on 7 January 1824 and shortly thereafter enlisted the support of the poet Thomas Pringle and of John Fairbairn. The governor, Lord Charles Somerset, who had been approached in advance and had made known his disapprobation became incensed over the reports of a criminal libel trial prosecuted at his insistence, and required Greig to give security not to publish anything offensive and to submit proofs to the fiscal for censorship. Greig, however, obtained permission in England from Earl Bathurst, the colonial secretary, to continue within the scope of the prospectus he had published.

This was a shortlived victory, for in 1827, under Somerset's persuasion, Bathurst banned the Advertiser for reflecting on the conduct of an official. Meantime, Ordinance No 26 (1826) had imposed a stamp duty, amounting to a penny a sheet and a halfpenny for each additional one, on newspapers and certain other periodicals, which was to remain until repealed by Ordinance No 2 of 1848.

The acting governor, General Richard Bourke,...