EDITOR THREATENS JOURNALIST WITH LEGAL ACTION FOR QUESTIONING HIS PAPER'S ETHICAL STANDARDS

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Terry Worley

          I have recently exposed the Northern KwaZulu-Natal Courier on my blog for accepting an advertorial from ponzi scheme promoters that the paper itself had named as crooks. That was my first post on this subject, Newspaper Behaving Badly - the Courier exposes Ponzi Schemes and then takes their Tainted Money for an Advertorial

(Newspaper Behaving Badly)

          It was followed by another one Newspaper’s Embarrassing Lesson after Libelling Engen (Newspapers Embarrassing Lesson) in which I took the paper to task because of the Engen logo that appeared, among others, in the advertorial. This was included, it would seem, to give readers the impression that the members of the De Beer family, who are behind the Coin-It and CommEx ponzi schemes, are very reputable business people.

         But like their ponzi rip-offs, this too was fraudulent. Engen has absolutely nothing to do with any member of this family or any of its companies I was told by Gavin Smith the firm’s External Communications Manager.

          In this post I included a very prominent link to my first story so that readers could see the explanation the paper gave for carrying the advertorial in the first place.

          Before posting my first story I sent an email to the Editor Terry Worley at the paper in Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal asking him why they had accepted that advertorial that painted Coin-It as a ‘do good’ charity organisation.

          “The Courier has just gone one better than the Sunday Times for appalling double standards just to make money,” I told him. You have also completely blown your belief “in the community newspaper being the trustworthy watchdog of the community.” This was one of his own quotes.

            I was referring to the fact that the Sunday Times carried two advertising inserts from CommEx and My House, ponzi schemes promoted by the same people as Coin-It, a few days after its sister publication had revealed that Coin-It and CommEx had been raided by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), which has since closed Coin-It. 

          Worley referred me to their advertising department without giving me the name of somebody to contact. He did however say: “Thanks for that. To be pedantic it was a half page ad, not a full page. PS. Loved your piece on Rowena’s (a ponzi investor I wrote a post about) plight, very well written. It appears as if the investigation has become stagnant with the Hawks but we are following up and apparently more investors, who have not received money need to make statements. We are told not even 15 have made statements and there are apparently 27 000.”

          Of my own volition I sent a similar email to Rod Skinner, the Regional Editor for this Caxton Group newspaper after establishing his credentials on Google. This time I added: “Surely that was the antithesis of good newspaper ethics. The message it sent was that your newspaper only cares about making money, not ethical behaviour.”

          He replied saying: “In fairness we had to give Coin-It a right of reply. They however insisted they wanted to reply in this manner. It is not for us to dictate how they as a company wish to exercise their right of reply. Nothing in the advertorial solicits business for the scheme.”          Since when have outsiders, particularly crooks, had an automatic right to tell a newspaper what and how they want something published?

          After posting my story about Engen I sent a link to Rowena James the anti-ponzi scheme activist who has been doing her best to get these ponzi promoters behind bars. I had also featured her several times on my blog.

          She then put a link to this on Facebook where she has a group called: The Truth - Exposing the Dundee Ponzi scheme boss.

In an interaction between her and Terry Worley that followed he stated: “You may like to know we are taking legal action against this person. Thank you.

“He himself followed no journalistic ethics to the ‘other side of the story’. We suspect his motives.”

Rowena then commented: “Terry Worley feel free to express your side of the story here, if you so wish.”

He replied: “It’s fine many thanks. It is out of my hands now as it has been escalated to our legal department in Johannesburg.”

After Rowena told me about this I replied saying that if I was to write about this threat I would obviously have to mention her in view of where it was made. I asked if this was okay as she could not be blamed for what I wrote about the Courier.

“I’m not scared of Terry,” she answered. “He probably was hoping for me to remove the post. I won’t do it.”

A few days later I received this odd email from Terry.

“Just a correction to your blog, our paper is paid for.” I had mistakenly stated that his paper was a free one. I immediately deleted the word “free” from the sentence that included “which has a weekly free distribution of 15 000 copies.”

He finished his email with this: “Meantime, thanks for all the free publicity. Best Terry. PS Check PMB High Court Dec. 4 Liquidation bid against Coin-It resumes. I assume you will cover this on your blog.”

 In my email reply I told him I had made the correction and asked: “What’s this I see on Facebook about you threatening legal action against me. It would not make much of a case if your only complaint about my reports (Totalling 1637 words) so far is that I got one word wrong.”

          He answered: “Our legal department is taking it up.”

          The Courier is part of the Caxton Group, one of the largest publishers and printers in South Africa. Its revenue this year was R6321-million with a profit of R452-million. So it has plenty of money to enable it to throw its legal weight around in this David and Goliath encounter.

          Let the truth prevail, because that’s what really seems to be what’s bugging the Courier, otherwise its Editor would surely have contacted me by now with a far more substantial complaint than that I had a word wrong that made absolutely no material difference to the main thrust of what I had written.

          Regards

          Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

         

      

NEWSPAPER BEHAVING BADLY - THE COURIER EXPOSES PONZI SCHEMES & THEN TAKES THEIR TAINTED MONEY FOR AN ADVERTORIAL

Dear Readers,

How is this for dubious newspaper morality? The Northern KwaZulu-Natal Courier, a community paper in the Caxton Group carried three exposés about the activities of members of the De Beer family’s Ponzi businesses Coin-It Trading and CommEx Minerals.

          The first one early last September was headed Drama unfolds as Coin-It and  Commex Minerals are raided. It was about how the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) had launched an investigation into these two companies.

          Its next report was headlined: Investment scheme maintains everyone will get paid.

          Then on September 18 it announced: Coin offices closed pending FSCA probe. Readers were told that it was too early to say what will happen to investors in Coin-It and CommEx Minerals following the raid by the FSCA.

          Soon afterwards the paper, which has a weekly free distribution of 15 000 copies in the coal mining town of Dundee (Population 34 000), carried the half page, controversial paid advertorial headed Coin-It Traders Speak Out! It would have earned the publication something like R7 000. 

This is how the Courier coined it & how
the advertorial began

          It was a huge puff extolling the good deeds these Ponzi scheme promoters had done for the people of the area as if their kind of business was perfectly acceptable.

          After weeks of controversy, Coin-It Trading appeals to the community to not forget all the good it has and is still doing, the ad began

          Speaking to the Courier, it went on, Coin-It’s representative, Peter Estrice said, “The public was not informed in the past on the big scope of activities that were taking place and the participation of social activities carried out by Coin-It.”

          Coin-It described itself as a huge part of the Dundee community and as such had aided many people.

Peter Estrice

          He claimed that when “last year’s terrible floods took away five lives, including three children, from a family in Sibongile (a Dundee township) Coin-It was there. We played a big role in helping the needy and even went to the extent of repairing some churches that were damaged.”

           Small businesses that relied on Coin-It had been enormously affected.

          “Other companies have also lost revenue when we stopped our service, such as the buying of trucks,” Estrice maintained. “Our hardware companies can no longer continue with business as everything has come to a standstill. Coin-It has donated signage to schools in the area and will continue to assist schools in other districts in the future.”

          Referring to the pending FSCA investigation Estrice stated: “As much as Coin-It is taking a beating it is also affecting our small businesses and individuals who relied on Coin-It. Our clients come from different backgrounds such as government officials, working class and the unemployed and Coin-It takes care of them.” He promised that they would have a "ceremony with our clients once everything had been sorted." 

          The advertorial concluded with the logos of the businesses the De Beer family evidently have an interest in.  

          In an email to the Courier’s Editor Terry Worley I asked how his paper could expose the Coin-It Ponzi scheme and then take this advertorial that promotes it.

          “The Courier has just gone one better than the Sunday Times for appalling double standards just to make money,” I told him. "You have also completely blown your belief in the 'community newspaper being the trustworthy watchdog of the community.'”

          I was referring to the fact the Sunday Times carried two advertising inserts from CommEx and My House, another Ponzi scheme promoted by the same people, a few days after its sister publication had revealed that Coin-It and CommEx had been raided by the FSCA.  (Heartless Sunday Times)

          Worley told me to refer to their advertising department. In a subsequent email he started that the Hawks investigation appeared to be stagnating, but they were following up because more investors who had not received their money still needed to make statements.

          “We are told not even 15 have made statements and there are apparently 27 000,” he added.

          I sent a similar email to Rod Skinner, Caxton’s Regional Editor for the area that includes the Courier asking why that controversial advertorial was accepted. “Surely that was the antithesis of good newspaper ethics,” I told him. “The message it sent was that your paper only cares about making money, not ethical behaviour.”

          He replied saying: “In fairness we had to give Coin-It a right of reply. They however insisted they wanted to reply in this manner. It is not for us to dictate how they as a company wish to exercise their right of reply.

          “Nothing in the advertorial solicits business for the scheme. Our investigative team is still investigating it along with several others in Northern KZN.”
                                     *     *     *

          Regards

          Jon, a Consumer Watchdog and the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.

P.S. The Caxton Group is no stranger to accepting adverts just to make money regardless of the morality of what it is doing. For years The Citizen, its daily paper that circulates mainly in Gauteng has been carrying Herbalist ads, when even one of its editors conceded to me that they are not believable.  Full of people claiming to be doctors, professors and the like when they are clearly nothing of the kind they offer services like “100% win lotto” and “manhood enlargement.” These are obviously nothing else but lies. (Lies,lies and more lies)

P.P.S. An advertorial is an advertisement written in the same style as a newspaper article. So it’s not hard to guess why the Ponzi promoters wanted their ad in this form.

   

JOURNALISM'S REAL DISGRACE - AND IT'S NOT QUESTIONING JACQUES PAUW'S SOURCES

Dear Newspaper readers, 

Jacques Pauw

          The Times editorial describes the Sunday Independent Editor Steven Motale’s attempts to expose Jacques Pauw’s "sources" for his book The President’s Keepers as a “disgrace to journalism.”

          Journalists have increasingly based stories on anonymous “sources,” which may or may not be real. A glaring example of how dicey this can be was the Sunday Times’ expose` about the so called rogue unit in the South African Revenue Service which was followed by a whole page apology (lotto journalism). As part of this possible, eating humble pie newspaper record, the Editor Bongani Siqoko admitted that one of the reasons they got things wrong was that they "overly relied on our sources." And that paper is in the same stable as The Times. 
            Let’s face it by attributing disclosures to so called “sources” a story can be made far more sensational than it actually is. So it’s hardly a disgrace to question their validity in Pauw’s book which has a very liberal sprinkling of them.

          The big problem arises when the words of these ghost contacts have to be substantiated in court. Will a person, who was not prepared to have his name publicly associated with an expose` of this kind, change his mind when it comes to a sensational court case, where he can be cross-examined and possibly be caught out in a lie?

          And if in defence of a story you have to make all kinds of excuses as to why your “sources” cannot come to give evidence that speaks for itself.

          Relying on “sources” to attack the reputation of the well healed can be a very risky business unless you have other much more concrete evidence to back them up.  Then it can be argued that if this other evidence it so good, why do you need to fortify it with quotes that can as likely as not be made up?

          Another problem is that journalists are never supposed to reveal the identity of their “sources” for their protection and some have actually gone to prison for this.
         Cynics might say that noble gestures of this kind are not to shield any helpful contact, but the reputation of the journalist himself, who could hardly confess to having no source at all.

          Newspaper journalism is very much going for the big one; the glory of having the splash that leads the front page, so the temptation is always there to sensationalise without the necessary facts. And that’s where untraceable “sources” can be very handy. 

          It’s one of those situations where in theory nobody but the journalist himself will ever know the truth, because it can’t be proved one way or the other.     

          It’s clear that the "disgraceful" aspect of what Motale’s paper did was that it questioned the work of a journalist. Heaven forbid that journalists eat journalists; it’s just not done old boy, certainly not in very parochial South Africa.

          If that book had been written by a non-journalist it would have been fair game.

          The Time’s editor Andrew Trench and all the other critical journalists in South Africa have been silent for years while the The Citizen, a Johannesburg based daily tabloid distributed nationally, has been aiding and abetting shysters to rip off poor and uneducated blacks with advertisements that even its editor agreed were not believable.
          They are all about "doctors" who can enlarge penises in five minute; win you the lottos and so on.

          Surely this silence is a much bigger “disgrace to journalism” than questioning Pauw’s book which only directly affects wealthy politicians and their associates.

          By coincidence Steven Motale had just become editor of The Citizen, before moving on to the Sunday Independent, when I wrote my first post about these money spinners that bring in an estimated R40 000 a day in the smalls section of that paper. Although he conceded they were not believable he said he thought the paper should still carry them with a “caution”.

          I would not have expected him to be able to dictate advertising policy to the Caxton Group, the owners of this paper. Money evidently overrode morality when it came to these advertisements.

          My first post The Citizen Aladdin’s cave of unbelievable adverts (unbelieveable) appeared early in 2013. After that I tried to get the South African Editor’s Forum, the Advertising Standards Authority and the since disbanded Print and Digital Media organisation of which both Caxton and Times Media were members to put pressure on The Citizen to get it to stop carrying these ads, but I got no joy from any of these pillars of rectitude.

          I had obviously hit the bullseye dead centre because after promoting this post on Twitter I was blocked by The Citizen. It has a circulation of 70 000 mostly black readers many of whom believe in this mumbo jumbo that is punted in theses ads.

          It has a checkered history having been founded in 1976 by the National Party apartheid government with money from a secret government slush fund to promote the party among English speakers. In 1998 it was bought by the Caxton Group, publishers of newspapers and magazines as well as being the country’s largest commercial printers.

          Terry Moolman its co-founder is the Group’s CEO.

          So Andrew Trench how about dealing with this real disgrace to South Africa’s newspapers in the next editorial in The Times. That might just achieve something far more beneficial than attacking another editor for legitimately questioning the validity

of the “sources” in Jacques Pauw’s sensational book The President’s Keepers.

          Regards,

          Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman, who has always believed that if an informant is not prepared to stand up and be counted, he or she should not be given the protection of a “sources” label in any newspaper story. He must also emphasise that he hasn’t a clue whether or not Pauw’s “sources” are genuine. For that we have to rely on his impeccable reputation as an investigative journalist of long standing. What Jon has written here about “sources” are his general observations about this kind of reporting and don’t refer to any particular person.

P.S. My sources tell me that there is not a chance in hell that any South African newspaper journalist will criticise The Citizen for what it is doing. It could just affect their future job prospects in a very small market.