Nearly 20 South African editors have been subpoenaed to appear before a special hearing of the Human Rights Commission on racism and risk imprisonment for six months if they refuse to comply.
The editors are drawn from a wide range of media institutions, from newspapers to television. They include black journalists of major publications, including some of those owned by Dr Tony O'Reilly.
The hearings are seen by some journalists, including the former editor of the Rand Daily Mail, Raymond Louw, as analogous to the "commissions of inquiry" into the press ordered by the previous white minority government, a charge rejected by the chairman of the HRC, the Rev Barney Pityana, an Anglican priest and graduate in law.
To be held over 10 days, starting on March 1st, the hearings are a sequel to two events: first, complaints in 1998 of "subliminal racism" against two newspapers, the Mail and Guardian and the Sunday Times, by the Black Lawyers' Association and the Association of Black Lawyers; and, second, the publication by the HRC last year of reports on "racism in the media".
One of the reports, by a media analyst, Ms Claudia Braude, has been widely attacked for its heavy reliance on "psycho-analytical theory" and sweeping generalisations that the racism of overtly right-wing publications pertains to mainstream newspapers, including those that either have black editors or an editorial staff which is predominantly black.
In a celebrated paragraph of Ms Braude's report, newspapers which expressed concern at decay in Johannesburg's central business district since the take-over by the African National Congress, are accused of manifesting "deep-seated racialised anxiety about dirt" and of identifying blacks with spreading dirt, odious smells and bodily excretions.
But Ms Braude and the author of the second report, Mr Edward Bird, of the Media Monitoring Project, have since expressed disquiet over the subpoenas.
They believe the racism they detect in the media is best resolved through discussion and debate, not through recourse to subpoenas and threats of prosecution for contempt of those editors, who either disregard them or refuse to take the commission's proceedings seriously.
The Financial Mail has described the HRC's action as heavy-handed and inimical to its statutory commitment to defend human rights, including those encouraged by journalists. It warns that South Africa's reputation as a society structured on a human-rights ethos will suffer if a single journalist is imprisoned for disobeying the HRC.
An HRC spokesman, Mr Siseko Njobeni, defends the decision to issue subpoenas. He reasons that the HRC would have found itself in the awkward situation of having no one from the media to answer questions from an as yet unidentified panel of "experts", if it had invited instead of summoned editors to testify.