THE South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) has welcomed the Competition Commission’s final report on the Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry, describing it as a landmark moment in addressing global digital market failures that have undermined journalism sustainability.
In a statement after its November Council meeting in Johannesburg, SANEF said the report marks a significant shift in South Africa’s digital media regulation, despite falling short of achieving full structural reform of the digital market.
The organisation praised the Commission for securing binding commitments from major tech platforms, including Google, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, X and OpenAI, along with a negotiated funding package that can take effect immediately.
“The Council notes that the Inquiry marks a landmark moment in South Africa’s attempt to address global digital market failures that have profoundly affected the sustainability of journalism,” SANEF said in a statement.
The editors’ forum welcomed the Commission’s approach of attempting to “fix the competition problem rather than simply compensate for the negative outcome” by moving beyond a narrow pay-for-harm model to reshape underlying digital market dynamics.
SANEF emphasised that the negotiated settlement offers critical practical advantages over protracted legal battles.
“Council emphasised that the negotiated settlement model offers a significant practical advantage: the remedies can take effect immediately,” the statement said. “Had the Commission opted for a purely adversarial or structural route, the country would have faced years of litigation, during which no meaningful support would flow to newsrooms, community media, or the SABC – despite the sector facing severe financial pressure and widespread market failure.”
The organisation said the settlement secures “funding, transparency obligations, AI-related protections and enforceable commitments now, rather than deferring relief until after long and costly court battles that the sector cannot afford.”
SANEF acknowledged the report’s shift toward multiple parallel funding mechanisms rather than a single national fund. These include the Google-funded Digital News Transformation Fund (DNTF), Google’s multi-year funding streams for national, community and mainstream publishers, SANEF’s proposed Journalism Fund SA, and the statutory Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA).
“South Africa will therefore have multiple purpose-specific funding instruments working in a complementary landscape,” SANEF said.
The organisation reported that the DNTF has been established to support independent publishers across the digital maturity spectrum – from those with little or no online presence to digitally mature publishers investing in modern technologies.
Ethical Standards Requirement Backed
SANEF strongly endorsed the Commission’s requirement that media houses must be members of the Press Council or Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) to benefit from key remedies, including Google News Showcase, monetisation tools, training programmes and AI-related protections.
“This alignment affirms SANEF’s longstanding position that ethical journalism, credibility, and public accountability must sit at the heart of any remedy involving platform funding or AI governance,” the statement said. “We urge Parliament to take careful note of this principle as it considers implementing the report’s recommendations.”
However, SANEF expressed concern that the Commission has not provided direct support to strengthen the Press Council and BCCSA themselves.
“These self-regulatory bodies are foundational to the integrity of the remedies, yet their sustainability remains uncertain,” the organisation warned. “If these institutions weaken, the entire architecture of the Inquiry’s outcomes may come under strain.”
The editors’ forum backed the recommendation that the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition grant a block exemption enabling media houses to negotiate collectively with tech platforms.
“This measure acknowledges bargaining asymmetries and aligns South Africa with international models in Australia and Indonesia,” SANEF said, noting that while it does not correct global power imbalances, it gives local publishers “essential legal cover to negotiate with dominant platforms.”
Platform concentration – a key threat
SANEF welcomed what it described as “the report’s strongest regulatory recognition to date that platform concentration in search, social media, and digital advertising is a key driver of the weakening of news publishers, exacerbated by collapsing referral traffic and the rise of AI systems that summarise news without compensation.”
The statement continued: “The report affirms what the media sector has long warned—that tech platforms extract enormous value from news content while returning a diminishing share, undermining the economic foundations of journalism.”
The Council meeting also addressed the urgent need to modernise South Africa’s media and journalism qualifications, which SANEF said “remain largely anchored in an outdated analogue framework.”
SANEF said many current programmes were designed before digital transformation and “place disproportionate emphasis on obsolete technical skills such as traditional broadcast engineering and linear production systems, while neglecting critical competencies required in contemporary newsrooms, such as data journalism, social video production, audience analytics, multimedia storytelling, and digital safety.”
The organisation warned that this misalignment is “producing underprepared graduates, increasing reskilling burdens for media organisations, and ultimately weakening the talent pipeline and the overall standard of journalism in South Africa.”
SANEF said it would lead a national campaign to address these deficiencies.
Despite acknowledging limitations in the negotiated approach, SANEF concluded positively on the Commission’s work.
“Overall, SANEF believes the Commission has produced a well-argued, well-researched report that significantly shifts the policy terrain,” the statement said. “While not resolving all structural issues, it establishes a solid foundation for the next phase of South Africa’s digital media regulation.”
