The Opinion Makers

The Prime Minister of South Africa, Mr. B.J. Vorster, speaking at the tiny Free State town of Koffiefontein on Friday, August 11, 1967, made an announcement which came as a great surprise.

He said that he had instructed his legal advisers to draw up legislation that would make it possible to take action against newspapers publishing untrue or distorted reports.

The Prime Minister explained: "I warned the newspapers before the last general election to discipline themselves, but they have taken no notice of my advice."

Heavy fines would be imposed, he said on newspaper companies whose employees were guilty of offending in terms of the proposed legislation.

As was only to be expected, Mr. Vorster's announcement was followed by a loud outcry in the South African Press, echoed by newspapers in many parts of the world.

Speaking in Durban a few days later, Mr. Vorster denied that he had any plans to muzzle the Press, and he explained that what he had in mind was the setting up of an independent tribunal which would, as he put it, "deal with ascertainable, factual lies in newspapers and pamphlets."

The publication of The Opinion Makers at this time is, therefore, most timely and should contribute something to the "fruitful discussion" which the Prime Minister suggested, supplying information and insights which the newspapers themselves cannot be expected to supply.

Indeed, this was the main purpose which the author had in mind when he began to write this book-that of drawing attention to one of the biggest unreported news stories of our times, the story about the Press itself.

Newspapers, whose self-appointed task it is to turn a glaring beam of publicity on any aspect of the contemporary scene which they consider newsworthy, are themselves a poignantly sensitive to light. Always eager advocates of debate or dialogue (as they now like to call it), there is nothing they hate and fear more than a debate in which they have themselves become the subject matter.

The result has been the creation of an almost impenetrable curtain of secrecy around the Press, its purposes, its methods and its activities.