Apologise, US embassy told after ‘threatening’ media freedom

Political analyst Henning Melber says the United States (US) government should apologise for threatening media freedom in Namibia.

This comes after the US embassy in Windhoek last week sent emails to at least three media houses questioning their affiliations to certain US news organisations to determine if the said media houses were aligned with US interests and priorities. The embassy, according to spokesperson Tiffany Miller, is undertaking a 90-day review process on all spending of taxpayer funds, including spending on media subscriptions and advertising.

Melber describes the move as undue interference into local matters.

“After all, Namibia has all the reasons to be proud of ranking – since independence – among the African countries with the highest media freedom,” Melber says.

Melber calls the US government’s stance a blatant interference of a diplomatic mission into domestic affairs in an area which is supposed to be none of its business.

“They might observe as diplomats the media landscape and draw their conclusions. But an enquiry of this kind borders to the days of McCarthyism and links a domestic witch-hunt [in the US] on media accused of being critical to the current Trump administration with local media in other countries who seem to be indirectly warned that any collaboration with these might result in punishment,” he says.

McCarthyism was a term coined in the 1950s to describe the practice of publicly accusing government employees or employees of government contractors of political disloyalty or subversive activities, and using unsavoury investigatory methods to prosecute them.

Melber adds that is not unusual that there are interests at play that seek to influence the media.

“This happens in various ways; advertising is one, paying for articles is another and subsidising media by third parties to promote certain views is another one.”

Melber says currently, influence over media is one of the main interests people and organisations are competing for.

“The absurd irony is that this is done by an administration, which pretends to fight for the freedom of opinion as a fabricated excuse to clamp down on the freedom of media and expression,” he says.

Media lecturer Phillip Santos yesterday agreed with Melber, saying that while this is an unprecedented development, it is not uncommon for the news media to be at the receiving end of powerful forces in society.

“The email circulated to Namibian news media by the US embassy shows not only the close interaction between global and local dynamics, but also the overreach of geopolitical imperatives,” Santos said.

He said the email portends an emerging dark era characterised by new forms of remote control over the media operating in distant geographies.

“This is one example of many that we have witnessed in the recent past. For instance, the Russian-Ukrainian war saw the deliberate narrowing of public discourse globally which limited expressive space to, in the main, pro-Western voices,” the lecturer explained.

Santos added that these tendencies have been amplified through this directive, which seeks to narrow public discourse in news media across the world to a sectarian world view in the US.

“Given the economic vulnerabilities of local media in this ongoing context of shrinking revenues, this directive poses a clear and present threat to press freedom in Namibia,” he said.

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