I undertook this work from the position of a practicing journalist. It is a work of advocacy that grew out of my 2010 PhD thesis in the Department of Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. I have also added my own experiences from time to time. The particular standpoint ab initio is in support of a press free from party political interference and control. I have always worked in the print media, and therefore I do not, and cannot, hide under an impossible cloak of detachment and objectivity. My position is that journalism makes a contribution to the deepening of democracy in South Africa and my focus is on the print media's role of public watchdog, holding power to account.

This book also examines the view that journalism in this country is shabby, unfair and irresponsible and therefore it needs a statutory media appeals tribunal. It challenges the Protection of State Information Bill (known as the ‘Secrecy Bill’) under which journalists would suffer severe penalties including jail sentences for being in possession of a classified document. In addition, disclosures of classified information to reveal criminal activity will be criminalised. Further deliberations on the Bill were postponed to September 2012.

The ANC's lead in a noble fight in exile, and inside the country, for liberation towards a democratic South Africa, can hardly be disputed. However, the irony is that the fight had to be strategically undertaken from exile, largely in secret, because of the nature of the organisation and its military component, and because it was banned inside the country. In this analysis of the relationship between the ANC and the media in South Africa, I've drawn a picture of highly contentious politics in the ANC vis-à-vis its support for the Secrecy Bill and a statutory media appeals tribunal (notwithstanding some backing down in 2012), a portrait of an organisation virtually turning against its own project of developing a radical democracy. We should also note the new General Intelligence Bill, which consolidates and centralises the power of a security regime in the making, giving more to the State Security Agency (although this bill has not been dealt with in this book).