Dear Newspaper Readers,
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| Pearlie Joubert - journo who started it all |
Today’s Johannesburg
This
appears to have been prompted by its now ex-journalist Pearlie Joubert who took
her own paper to task for what she considered to be the unethical way it
conducted an investigation into a rogue unit at the South Africa
I won’t go into the details as this
has been widely reported elsewhere. The paper of course has stated that her
allegations are completely unfounded.
My concern however is the accuracy of this Editorial. From my own firsthand experience I believe that the paper needs a strong dose of the truth drug.
My concern however is the accuracy of this Editorial. From my own firsthand experience I believe that the paper needs a strong dose of the truth drug.
THAT EDITORIAL
“We
want to reassure you, our readers, and the public at large, that we adhere to
and practise the highest standards of ethical and principled journalism,” is
one of them. Ha-ha!
Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“We
have always (take special note of this word) been bound by a code of ethics
and acted within the law, and have respected public expectations. We have been
conscious of and responsive to concerns or complaints regarding anything that
appears in this paper as part of our public accountability system.” Ha-ha!
Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“Our
journalists, editors and other editorial staff are expected to - and have (another
word of special note) – operated within
these ethical, legal, institutional and professional bounds.” Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“All these form part of our
values, ethos and our social contract with our readers.
“We have never abused your
trust, and never will.” Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“We will never
forget that we derive our mandate
and legitimacy from this public trust. It is required of us that we exercise
our power, mandate and duty with the utmost care - ethically and responsibly,
holding ourselves to the same standards we expect of others.” Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“We constantly remind
ourselves that our conduct must never be motivated or influenced by anything
other than the public interest.” Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
“Therefore any insinuation
that we have been swayed by anything other than the public interest is
baseless.” HA-HA! HA-HA! HA-HA!
If there is no fiction in all this self praise how
does the paper explain the following? For several years until a couple of years
ago it had its own in house ombudsman. The first one didn’t last long and nor
did the second one. I raised complaints with both of them and got nowhere.
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| VERY LATEST THIS IS THE BIGGEST JOKE OF ALL. THE DAILY MAVERICK'S REPORT JUST THREE DAYS AFTER THE "WE ARE SO HONEST" EDITORIAL APPEARED |
Now they don’t have one at all. My belief is they were
causing too much embarrassment. One even made the absurd suggestion in print
that corrections should be given the same prominence in the paper as the
original story. The paper couldn’t possibly have its mistakes exposed in this
fashion could it?
In about 2009 I began what turned out to be a long
running campaign on my blog to get the Sunday Times to stop carrying
get-rich-quick ads that were so obviously scams because the returns being
offered were far, far too good to be true.
I sent my first complaint to Thabo Leshilo the
ombudsman at the time.
In an article naming me that he wrote in
the paper he indicated that something would be done to ensure these no longer
appeared. His view was that “Ads like
the rest of the paper had to be believable.”
Inevitably nothing happened. Money was clearly more
important to the paper than morality. This made nonsense of the Editorial's claim
that “We have been conscious of and
responsive to concerns or complaints regarding anything that appears in this
paper as part of our public accountability system.”
In December 2010 I wrote a post headed Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman sensors Sunday
Times (sensorship) addressed to the paper’s business
journalist Brendan Peacock who had written an article in the business section
(Business Times) headed “Hallmarks of a
Scam.”
I asked whether he read his own paper
because while it carried his “sanctimonious
article on how not to get scammed” it continued to carry ads which were
clearly scams as they complied with just about everything mentioned in his
article.
The ads continued to appear and no
doubt people who could least afford it continued to lose a life time of savings.
So much for the paper’s concern for the interests of the public. (“We constantly remind ourselves that our
conduct must never be motivated or influenced by anything other than the public
interest.”)
In September 2011 I wrote another post
headed Sunday Times – haven for dubious
adverts (dubious ads). This was after I had complained to Leshilo’s successor Joe
Latakgomo and he had written an article headed “Beware of dubious adverting claims.”
In it he said these “erode the public trust in newspapers. We are distressed by the number
of scams that infiltrate our pages and cheat our readers. We will continue as
journalists to expose those that cheat and lie to our readers.”
But as far as I know the Sunday Times (I get
it every week) did not expose these crooks that were making a packet by
advertising in its own paper and nor did it stop taking the ads. You don’t bite
the hand that feeds you however rotten that hand happens to be seems to have
been its thinking.
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| Joe Latakgomo writing about my complaint |
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| Joe again |
It’s hard then to understand how that Editorial had the
gall to tell us that the paper prides itself as being known for its “ethical, award-winning and uncompromising
investigative reporting that exposes wrongdoing.”
In May 2012 I wrote another post headed Noseweek exposes Dearjon letter (dearjon-letter exposed). It was addressed to Ray Hartley the Sunday Times editor at the time
and was a longer version of what I had written for Noseweek , South Africa
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| The warning Joe was talking about above that the paper seemed to think absolved it from any responsibility for what happened to investors |
I told Ray that it was “deplorable the way your paper has been promoting crooks for years.”
I referred him to an expose` that had just been aired
on the Carte Blanche TV channel. It revealed that Kevin Cholwich and François
Buys had defrauded people out of millions and two of the companies they used were
Whoopee and Geo Connect. And surprise, surprise these were ones that I had
complained about when their ads appeared in the Sunday Times.
One investor, a 47 year old mother of two lost her
entire pension of R250 000 accumulated over 10 years of hard graft after
she put it into Whoopee.
This might never have happened if the Sunday Times
practised anything like what it preaches.
It was only after this that these kinds of dubious ads
seemed to disappear from the Sunday Times. Of course it would never admit that
I had anything to do with this.
Another shocking example of the questionable morality
at this paper involved Jim Jones the former Editor of Business Day in Johannesburg
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| JONES IN NOSEWEEK |
Nobody it appears had bothered to check his most
recent background so when he started writing for the Sunday Times they didn’t
know, or if they did they ignored it, that he had been fired by his previous
employer, Moneyweb for helping himself to R200 000 of the firm’s money.
Things came to a head when he used his position on the
Sunday Times to write a scathing article about Moneyweb, an online financial
investment reporting firm that is quoted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The Sunday Times was forced to apologise and a damning Noseweek article exposed
him as a crook.
At the time Alec Hogg, Moneyweb’s founder said Jones
was fired by his firm and forced to repay the R200 000 he had stolen.
At this stage the Sunday Times could not have had any
excuse for not being fully aware that Jones could only damage the paper’s
reputation if he continued to write for it, especially in the business section.
Yet it continued to employ him. After disappearing for
a while his byline reappeared.
In July 2012 Joe Latakgomo wrote in one of his general
columns that appeared periodically in the Sunday Times that the “Media must stick to nothing but the truth”
as it derived its “moral authority
from being trusted.”
Ironically the following week Jim Jones’ byline
reappeared in Business Times. So I sent Joe an email referring to Jones and asked:
“Can one trust a newspaper that
continues to employ someone it knows has a record of this kind.”
He didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. Was this
being “conscious of and responsive to
concerns or complaints regarding anything that appears in this paper as part of
our public accountability system?”
At the time of the Noseweek article Jones’ reports
were all over Business Times together with his impressive byline. Then it got smaller
and smaller only to disappear for a while and then reappear at bigger and
bigger intervals before fading out completely. It looked as though somebody was
very reluctant to see him go.
SO IF PEARLIE
JOUBERT HAS BEEN TELLING FANCIFUL STORIES AS THE PAPER ALLEGES I CAN SEE WHERE
SHE GOT THE IDEA FROM – HER OLD PAPER ITSELF, THE SUNDAY TIMES THAT HAS BEEN
SETTING SUCH A POOR EXAMPLE.
Regards,
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| LATEST, LATEST: This appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times just 14 days are after that "We are so perfect" Editorial |
Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman who tries to tell
it like it is and not as he thinks people would like to hear it.
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