The ANC's anti-media campaign and its unexpected brilliance

For many years now we've grown accustomed to just about anything touched by the ANC-dominated government wilting and dying. Government departments are in chaos, many of them without functioning directors general, with parastatals faring even worse.

And yet it appears that the ANC just had a moment of shining clarity in its latest war against its über-enemy, the media. It is actually doing it well, very well.

Unity is a crucial element in doing anything of importance in an organisation as diverse as the ANC. Riven by divisions and run through with meetings dominated by "robust discussion", the ANC was always at its best when mobilising against the common enemy. And this time, it's facing one enemy that all its factions can heartily unite against - the media.

The desire and, quite frankly, the need, to stop freedom of the media in this country runs so strongly, that it even managed to split previously unbreakable ties between SA's communists and Cosatu, which is so far resisting calls to muzzle the media.

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