The African National Congress (ANC) on Thursday criticised the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) for voicing its support for a complaint launched with the party about its Youth League by political journalists earlier this week.

In a statement issued by party spokesperson Jackson Mthembu, the ANC said that it was perturbed that whilst the complaint was receiving its attention, a statement was issued by Sanef, which apparently diverted the organisation from addressing it.

The party also publicly acknowledged that it had received the journalists' complaint letter addressed to the organisation through its secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, for the first time since it was sent to it on Monday.

Mthembu said that the letter of complaint had already been acknowledged by Mantashe's office to one of the complainants.

He was responding to concerns expressed by Sanef in a statement issued earlier on Thursday that the ANC was yet to respond to the letter from the journalists, which alerted it to one of the most brazen attacks on press freedom in the new South Africa.

"We join the journalists in calling on President Jacob Zuma, as head of the ANC and of government, to rein in the ANC Youth League and take steps to establish whether State resources are not being used to gather information on journalists," Sanef said.

Sanef's statement followed the ANCYL and its spokesperson, Floyd Shivambu's attempts to intimidate and blackmail the media by digging into the private affairs of some journalists.

"At the receipt of the complaint by the journalists, the ANC was of the opinion that the complaint letter was as a result of genuine and legitimate concerns by the journalists, " Mthembu said.

"It is in this spirit that the ANC, through its office of the secretary-general, went to investigate the content thereof, including starting verification of the said allegations," he said.

Mthembu said that the inclusion of Sanef and a statement issued by the body on the matter without allowing the ANC to finalise its already started approach on the complaint by the journalists, has brought serious confusion and doubts within the ranks and leadership of the party.

"On the surface, it would look like there is ganging up of the broader journalistic fraternity against the ANC. This would in fact be construed to be true when looked at from a perspective where attacks against the ANC and its leadership have become the order of the day," he said.

"Our view is that the ANC should have been given an opportunity to deal with the complaint before it. The mere fact that the organisation was not given an opportunity to do so might be understood that the entire approach by the media, inclusive of the complaint, was meant to put the ANC in bad light from the onset."

"It would be very regrettable when our own organised editors' forum is understood to be jumping into the bandwagon of attacking the ANC and deliberately damaging its image and standing within the South African society," Mthembu said.