News24 reports that the SA National Editors' Forum (Sanef) on Monday confirmed the launch of an Inquiry into Media Ethics, with a panel of commissioners to be headed by retired judge Kathleen Satchwell.
This after it noted a "number of disturbing trends in our industry", such as the erosion of public trust, decline of editorial independence owing to issues such as the encroachment of media owners and shrinking newsrooms linked to large-scale retrenchments. Sanef in a statement said it noted that trust in journalism had eroded in the era of fake news and misinformation, as well as journalists sometimes backing certain political factions, which had muddied the waters by tainting the whole industry. An action plan is expected to be presented at an industry conference a year from now. The forum said it was also alarmed by large-scale retrenchments, pointing out that the latest State of the Newsroom Report, published by Wits Journalism, had quantified this because about half of the professional journalist workforce had been slashed from about 10,000 to about 5,000 over the past decade.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard at News24
- Read Sanef’s press statement at Sanef News
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