South African Firms Slam Plan to Curb Press

South Africa's business community, which rarely confronts the powerful ruling political party, took aim at the African National Congress-controlled government and proposals to clamp down on the print media, saying such efforts threatened to tarnish the country's image and undermine a wave of investor interest after hosting the World Cup.

"We just dispelled so many stupid ideas about our country," said Bobby Godsell, chairman of Business Leadership South Africa, a group made up of chief executives of the nation's 80 largest companies. "Now we've got people raising questions about whether our government believes in press freedom," he said. Business Leadership South Africa called press freedom "the lifeblood of both markets and democracies." And while the group said the quality of the country's journalism needed to improve, it criticized a proposed parliamentary watchdog for the media and a separate bill that casts a wide net over what information is classified.