Outside the Port Elizabeth city hall is a sculpture telling how the Portuguese spent 300 years searching for the elusive Prester John, a mythical Christian king. Inside, the hall, in the basement, a handful of people debated this Monday in search of the perfect system for press self-regulation. Hopefully, a less futile quest!

The SA Press Council has called for submissions as part of its review. So I started writing... and writing. Almost 4000 words and nine pages later, there are more than a couple of ideas about how press self-regulation can be strengthened. In a nutshell:

1. Change the name of the whole institution to "Press Accountability South Africa" (PASA).
2. Create separate bodies for adjudication and appeals.
3. Provide a Public Advocate to assist complainants, and an Advocacy Officer to drive public awareness.

Rapport stuck to its guns yesterday that press self-regulation was bad in principle (their graphic above, an English translation of their article below).

Rapport newspaper editorialised on Sunday against self-regulation in favour of what it called "independent regulation". Ouch.
The idea is something between self-regulation on the one hand, and ruling party regulation (via parliament) on the other.

South Africans have two self-righteous bodies with major divergences in their mutual perceptions. Put in simplified form, you can say:

• SA’s journalists see themselves as watchdogs on power on behalf of the public.
• The ANC and government see the press as a bunch of hyenas.

• Politicians have a proclivity to be demons, according the watchdogs.
• Our leaders are angels, according the ANC.