South Africa Communiqué
6 July 2010
Ruling party set to get its own publication

African National Congress (ANC) is set to have its own newspaper. The publication will be funded by the Gupta Group which is closely linked to the party president Jacob Zuma and the ANC, due to go public in September.

The New Age, it will be called and it will be a daily newspaper. Essop Pahad whose magazine is also bankrolled by the Guptas, is one of the people behind the newspaper and former Business Day journalist Vuyo Mvoko is expected as editor of the paper.

Mr Pahad said the newspaper  “is not and will not be affiliated to the ANC”. The ANC has made no secrete of its dissatisfaction with the media and its belief that media companies are unfairly critical of it. At its Polokwane conference in 2007 it emerged that an ANC-aligned newspaper was needed, but the biggest obstacle has been to find a financier.

The New Age will target the middle top end of the market and will be based in Gauteng. The newspaper is described as “sympathetic” to the party in the media circles. Media analyst Anton Harber, said the newspaper would be a “healthy addition to the mix of voices” but that it was important that “they are clear and open about where they are coming from”. He said there was a need to ensure that government departments did not favour the new publication when it came to recruitment advertising, which he said “would be illegal”.

Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) spokesman Pratrick Craven welcomed the competition, saying the labour federation had always felt that “print media were owned by too few companies.”.

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