EDITORIAL: The tape-recorders are on — spinning away slowly but surely. We are the first people in the world to ensure instantaneous and comprehensive preservation of the oral tradition. They are there, the tapes, inside the National and Provincial Assemblies, in the High Courts of Judicature, in hostels, clubs, offices, private homes and hip-pockets. The popular after-dinner entertainment is to put on a full recording of a public meeting or highly revealing private conversations. The Beatles are out and so is the Beat. At Press conferences reporters shudder to ask a question unless they want to have a detailed political discussion replayed to them. Everyone is taping (earlier it used to be tailing) everyone else and skilled technicians are busy editing the record to suit the owner’s point of view. The next step is going to be video-tapes so that the ‘show’ can come on live for the audience. That all this might be an infringement of a citizen’s right to privacy is an outlandish idea. The moral: Don’t think and if you must for God’s sake hold your tongue!

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2023