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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
