The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) warned this week that journalists face intimidation, harassment, and threats as campaigning intensifies before the 4 November local government elections. The warning came in a statement marking 49 years since Black Wednesday, the day in 1977 when the apartheid government banned two newspapers aimed at black South Africans.

“Black Wednesday reminds us that the price of silencing journalism is ultimately paid by society,” said SANEF chairperson Katy Katopodis. She said the attacks happen “both in their physical working environments and across digital platforms”, and that they “undermine the public’s right to information”.

The statement names no one, but SANEF’s recent complaints show what it means. Earlier this month Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, founder of the anti-immigration movement March and March, posted a screenshot of questions sent to her by News24 reporter Khaya Koko, who was investigating state contracts linked to her and her husband. The screenshot showed Koko’s phone number. SANEF said he then received more than a hundred threatening calls and messages, one of which read: “I’ll hunt you. And I will find you; I’ll make an example of you.” Ngobese-Zuma blurred the number only after News24’s lawyer wrote to her.

In June, SANEF accused the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) and March and March of bullying the media. The MKP had issued a statement attacking Business Day political editor Hajra Omarjee after she reported that people close to former president Jacob Zuma were discussing a repeat of the 2021 unrest. SANEF flagged a number of additional incidents this year when journalists were prevented from doing their jobs.

On Black Wednesday, 19 October 1977, a month after Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko died in police custody, the apartheid government banned The World and its Sunday edition, Weekend World. It also outlawed Black Consciousness organisations and detained The World’s editor, Percy Qoboza, who was held without trial for five months. The date is now marked each year as Media Freedom Day.

SANEF called on everyone who values constitutional democracy to defend media freedom, which it said “is neither an inheritance that can be taken for granted nor a constitutional promise that defends itself”.