WeeklySA_AdminPERSPECTIVE: Across South African radio and television, anti-immigration framing has become the norm…
By Rumana Akoob and Lumka Oliphant
Three people stand and sit beside suitcases and bags on a pavement against a white wall, appearing to wait outside with their belongings.
In May, Leanne Manas, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and the anchor of SABC’s Morning Live—South Africa’s public broadcaster’s flagship morning television show—interviewed International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola. “We cannot deny that we have a huge problem when it comes to people that are undocumented here residing in South Africa,” she said. Manas was not quoting Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the leader of March on March—an anti-migrant vigilante organization that has organized marches calling for the removal of undocumented foreigners—nor was she reading from a March on March memorandum. And that is the problem.
Across South African radio and television, a pattern of anti-immigration framing has become the norm, baked into questions before guests have a chance to answer. Using phrases like “we cannot deny” rather than “evidence suggests” shows the assumption embedded in the question—that the presence of foreign nationals is a problem to be managed rather than a symptom of the failures of this state. Even the word “foreigner,” used casually by media practitioners and government communicators alike, quietly builds the architecture of a takeover narrative before a single allegation has been made. If we as journalists fail to realize this, we become part of the xenophobic infrastructure built by Ngobese-Zuma.
The United Nations provides language guidelines for journalists, which include referring to migrant children as “children on the move” rather than adopting dehumanizing language. These tools exist because words chosen by journalists and government communicators determine whether a conversation unites or divides.
“We cannot deny” shuts down disagreement before it can form, manufacturing consensus between interviewer and minister before the viewer has been given a single piece of evidence. No statistics on the relationship between migration and service delivery, no distinction drawn between the presence of undocumented people and the cause of the state’s structural failures.
The premise that undocumented people are a problem is declared self-evident, and the interview proceeds from there. The guest is not being asked to defend a claim. They are being asked to agree with one.
This matters because language is not neutral. When a trusted anchor on the public broadcaster describes undocumented people as a “huge problem” on morning television, that framing does not stay in the studio.
It becomes the lexicon of the person watching at home, confirmation that what they already suspected has been validated by someone in authority. These people are the problem. Their presence is the crisis. Their removal is the solution. Journalism did not invent xenophobia in South Africa, but journalism can and does provide it with a respectable address.
Scholars Sarah Chiumbu and Dumisani Moyo, writing on South African media, found that while the media brought awareness to xenophobic violence, it simultaneously used narrative frames that justified the exclusion of foreigners by entrenching a perception of insiders and outsiders.
They argue it is the media that has reinforced fears of a national takeover, and found that the failure to distinguish between asylum seekers, refugees, and documented migrants—treating everyone not from South Africa as an outsider—created the perception that the country prioritises other nationalities over its own citizens.
South Africans do have real concerns and real socioeconomic problems. Schools are overcrowded, clinics are overwhelmed, and housing is under impossible strain. We have legitimate anger. If journalists were to follow the evidence rather than the sentiment and ask what is the cause of these conditions, the answer points not to foreign nationals but to decades of neglect and corruption at every level of government.
When 300 Ghanaian nationals left South Africa following the recent violence against them, Julius Malema—leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, South Africa’s third-largest party—asked how many of those 300 jobs were then filled by South Africans. Responsible journalism would have asked it first.
South African journalists are not ignorant of this. On 702, Johannesburg’s leading talk radio station, host Aubrey Masango recently referenced Rwanda and the Second World War—naming what radio does when it abandons its responsibility to truth in a moment of social volatility. He said a radio voice carries a butterfly effect that cannot be undone.
But this xenophobic framing has become so woven into how this story is told that even journalists who know its history reproduce it. This is a structural problem that requires a structural response. Not every broadcaster has abdicated this responsibility equally. 702’s Clement Manyathela has pushed back, pointing out that the Constitution guarantees health-care access regardless of documentation status, when the national treasurer of March on March called for that access to be removed.
But even here, the factual claims that undocumented migrants are receiving specialist health-care and educational grants ahead of South African citizens were allowed to pass unchallenged. A claim does not need a xenophobic host to become part of the public record.
It only needs a space where the question “But where is your evidence for that?” is never asked.
A march is coming on June 30—organized by March on March and allied formations, calling for the mass removal of undocumented migrants. Their leaders have said there will be no violence. Perhaps. But there will be cameras and microphones. Anchors will ask guests whether people have a right to express their frustration. According to the Constitution, the answer is yes.
But that is not the only question. The question that journalism must also ask is what happens to the people on the other side of that frustration. What happens to the Zimbabwean family in the flat above the march route? What happens to the child born in South Africa to parents the law has not yet decided what to do with?
Journalism is not required to be sympathetic to undocumented migrants or to take a political position on immigration policy. It is required to be accurate, to verify claims before amplifying them, and to distinguish between a community’s genuine suffering and the manufactured explanation for that suffering.
The SABC carries a public mandate, and private broadcasters carry a code which exists because South Africans understand, from experience, what media can do when it abandons its responsibility to truth in service of a story that feels good, sounds right, and confirms what people already want to believe.
Leanne Manas knows what displacement looks like. She has sat in refugee camps and looked into the faces of the people the rest of the world prefers not to see. Despite that, while interviewing a minister, she could not resist the gravity of the frame.
We know how much shifting needs to be done, and it cannot wait until June 30. When the cameras roll or the microphone begins recording, South African journalists will have a choice to make. Not about immigration. About what journalism is for. – Africa is Country
Rumana Akoob is a filmmaker, photographer and Lumka Oliphant a journalist by profession
Comment
Immigration debate demands honesty
South African journalists indeed face a choice. But it is not the choice described by those who insist that concerns about undocumented immigration are merely coded expressions of xenophobia. The real choice is whether journalism will remain committed to facts, nuance and evidence—or surrender to ideological narratives from either side of the debate.
An article on this page (‘SA Journalists have a choice’) argues that South African media has become part of a “xenophobic infrastructure” by describing undocumented immigration as a problem and by framing public frustration over migration as a legitimate issue for discussion. The article raises important questions about language and journalistic responsibility. It is right to caution against stereotyping immigrants, amplifying unverified claims or inflaming public tensions. Yet it falls into a trap that has become increasingly common in discussions about immigration. It assumes that concern about undocumented immigration is inherently suspect.
It is not.
South Africa is a constitutional democracy with internationally recognised obligations towards refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. It is also a sovereign state with a legal obligation to secure its borders, enforce its laws and maintain accurate immigration systems. These responsibilities are not contradictory. They are complementary. To acknowledge that undocumented migration presents governance challenges is not xenophobia. It is a statement of reality.
A nation can welcome legal migrants, value their contributions and protect their rights while simultaneously expecting its immigration laws to be respected. Most countries in the world do exactly that. They do not become anti-immigrant because they enforce immigration laws.
What deserves scrutiny is the growing tendency to label any discussion of border control, documentation or immigration enforcement as evidence of prejudice. Such framing risks shutting down legitimate debate before it begins.
Words matter. But facts matter too.
The facts are that South Africa hosts millions of foreign nationals, many of whom live peacefully among local communities, contribute to the economy and enrich our society. The facts are also that South Africa faces serious challenges in managing migration systems, processing documentation and policing porous borders. Both realities can be true simultaneously. Journalism serves the public best when it resists simplistic narratives. It should challenge unfounded allegations against immigrants. But it should also challenge the notion that every concern about undocumented migration is motivated by hatred. The role of journalism is not to choose sides in an ideological contest. It is to ask difficult questions, verify claims and provide citizens with the facts necessary to make informed judgments. South Africa does not need more labels.
It needs more honesty.
And honesty begins by recognising that defending immigrants from prejudice and defending the rule of law are not opposing causes. In a healthy democracy, they are part of the same commitment to justice.
