SOUTH AFRICA'S PRESS PROTECTION RACKET

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Pippa Green Press Ombudsman

          Did you know that large sections of our press are running their own protection racket unhindered by the Press Ombudsman or anybody else? And a Judge, who is currently heading a media ethics inquiry, is not prepared to consider this decay in our newspaper morality.

          The inquiry has been established by the South African National Editor’s Forum (SANEF) and the Judge’s treatment of my submission does nothing to support SANEF’s claim that it is there to “fight for the highest standards of ethics in the media.”

          The papers involved are the Daily Sun and the free People’s Post community weeklies in the Media24 stable as well as Caxton's The Citizen daily.

          Even Professor George Claassen Media24’s own Ombudsman had nothing good to say about the Herbalist advertisements that appear in his Group’s papers. "I agree with you, many of these ads are totally misleading and even fraudulent,” he said.

          Steven Motale the Editor of The Citizen at the time I wrote my story also agreed that the ads were not believable.

          They have people claiming to be doctors, professors and the like who can win you the lotto, enlarge your penis and do all kinds of other amazing things, almost over night. Some even offer a 100% guarantee. 
          Of course its illegal to call yourself a doctor when you are not one, but the papers don't worry about that. All they are interested in is making money. In the 17 May 2019 edition of the Sun there were two pages of these ads with 10 advertisers claiming to be doctors.

          As I knew the Press Ombudsman did not deal with advertising, another aspect of my campaign to stop these papers lying daily occurred to me. This was the editorial side of these, something this Ombudsman is definitely mandated to deal with, as she is there to rule on complaints against print and on-line publications. So I contacted Pippa Green, who became the new Ombudsman a couple of months ago.

This is typical
of the Herbalist
ads that appear
in the Daily Sun

          “I realise that your office does not deal with advertising,” I began. “But this is about the immoral way certain newspapers give crooks, who advertise in their papers, editorial immunity from having their activities exposed in their editorial sides.

          “At the same time a host of other dubious characters, who don’t advertise, get their comeuppance in the same papers.”

          My complaint, she told me, first had to go to the Public Advocate Joe Latakgomo. A former newspaper editor he was given this job last year to champion the complaints of members of the public, because one of the issues raised at a press commission was that the public’s voice was not being heard.

          The irony was that way back in 2011, when I was campaigning to get the Sunday Times to stop carrying get-rich-quick ads that promised unrealistic returns on investments, he was the internal Ombudsman for the Avusa Group, the owners of that paper. I upset him by suggesting that he was a lame duck ombudsman.

          An article he wrote in the paper, prompted I believe by my complaints, was headed Beware of dubious advertising claims. It looked as though the paper was finally going to stop aiding crooks.

          “These come-ons,” Joe told readers, “eroded the public's trust in newspapers and false advertising, or advertising that makes claims that are patently exaggerated, impact on consumer confidence.”

          He then gave this assurance, “We will continue as journalists to expose those who cheat and lie to our readers.” Nothing happened and it took several more years of my campaigning before the paper stopped taking this kind of ad. I’m sure it would never concede that my blog had anything to do with this change of policy. It did however have one lapse last year.

          Joe left the Group not long afterwards and as far as I know it has not had an internal Ombudsman since. It has changed hands several times in the last few years.

          I told Pippa that I did not think Joe was the right person to deal with my complaint in view of my dealings with him when he was with Avusa and she replied: “I cannot breach the Complaints Procedure by leapfrogging the Public Advocate in the first instance.”

          Guest what: she evidently did exactly that because I never heard from Joe and she effectively kicked my gripe into touch.

          She conveniently ignored what I wrote about the editorial side of these papers, even though this is the part of them that is the reason for her existence. “We do not at the moment have the jurisdiction to deal with advertising,” she told me.

Judge Satchwell

          Retired High Court Judge Kathleen Satchwell, who is heading the SANEF Inquiry with two retired journalists, took much the same view of what I had put to Pippa. She too completely ignored the editorial aspect.

          In my email to her I stated: “The gist of my submission is the immoral way certain South African newspapers have for years been aiding and abetting crooks to rip off those, who can usually least afford it, by carrying their advertisements that are clearly fraudulent. This media cancer has been compounded by the papers giving the shysters editorial immunity from having their activities exposed in their editorial sides.”

          She replied saying: “We consider that your concerns as to ‘fraudulent’ advertising falls beyond our remit. We have no powers to investigate criminal behaviour, which the connotation of ‘fraud’ certainly encompasses.”

          Her last statement was absurd as nowhere in my 13 page submission did I so much as suggest that they should investigate the fraudulent advertisements. It’s patently obvious that this is not something the Inquiry could be expected to do.

          I told her that in her reply to me Pippa Green wrote that they had another complaint from a man who lost a lot of money by responding to an ad in a community paper for a Profit. “We wrote to the editor of that paper,” Pippa continued, “and she has undertaken to help the police investigation and to speak to their advertising department about the type of advertising they accept.”          

          So once again somebody was ripped off with the help of the dubious side of the South Africa press, I stated in my submission to Judge Satchwell.

          I pointed out that Pippa Green did concede, however that: “We agree that many advertisements are problematic and undermine the credibility of newspapers. But we only have the tools of persuasion at the moment rather than instruction because we do not have jurisdiction over ads per se.”  

          She added that the Press Council’s Executive Director Latiefa Mobara had met with the new head of the Advertising Regulatory Board CEO Gail Schimmel, “who is also aware of the problem of misleading ads.

          “Will continue working with her and speak to editors to see what we can solve, but in the meantime, the ARB is the body to deal with such complaints.”

          The ARB replaced the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that was so bad it was liquidated. When I complained to the ASA about misleading newspaper ads I got the complete run around. I was told they did not have the power to tell papers to stop carrying these, as they could only deal with the individual advertisers. They wanted me to submit a separate complaint for each ad that I believed was not kosher.  And I don’t expect the ARB to be any different.

          At one stage the ASA stated it had ruled against Herbalist advertisements "on numerous occasions, and it is hoped that the appropriate authorities will address this issue as it is no doubt causing harm to the credibility of legitimate healers and practitioners and this industry at large." As usual nothing happened.

Former Sunday Times
Consumer columnist

          These advertising authorities, like the Press Council (the Ombudsman is part of this) were established and financed by the industries they serve, so their impartiality is very questionable when it comes to dealing with complaints. What’s more they only have a tenuous control over those advertising agencies and media groups that are their members. They are essentially there to protect their masters, who pay for them and to give the illusion that they are looking after the interests of the public.         

          I ended my submission with: “It’s not surprising that newspapers go on printing the kind of lies I have referred to because the Press Council has little or no power to effectively police the press in South Africa. As the Independent Media (It owns papers like the Cape Times, The Star in Johannesburg and various others) showed, if a newspaper group doesn’t like Press Council decisions that go against it, all it has to do is resign as a member. It then has a free rein to go on doing whatever it likes or in this case appoint its own internal ombudsman.

You can’t get more absurd than having a Press Ombudsman, who concedes that the kind of advertisements I have referred to “undermines the credibility of newspapers,” but, conveniently,  she hasn’t been given the power to do anything about them.

        The terms of reference for the Inquiry that the Judge is heading state that its purpose “Shall include: Investigation of ethical breaches on the part of the media industry in South Africa and those obstacles to accountable and credible media practice.”

Well if ever there was an obstacle to “credible media practice” it was the Judge’s decision to refuse to consider my submission.

Regards

Jon, the self appointed Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.
See also (sunday times at it again; lies lies and more lies & 
sunday times will never expose this)

P.S. I wasn’t optimistic that my submission to the SANEF Inquiry would get beyond first base. But if you don’t try you never know. SANEF represents editors and senior newspapers journalists and other people in the media. So I could hardly expect my views to be taken seriously because, if they were, the papers concerned might have to do without a good slice of their income. In my one man, 10 year long campaign to stop papers from continuing to print what are obviously money making lies I sent emails to SANEF’s director at the time Mathatu Tsedu, as well as the current director Kate Skinner to try to get them to do something about this. I didn’t even get a reply. 
P.P.S. The two journalists with the Judge on the panel are described as being 'retired from the industry.' They are Nikiwe Bikitsha and Rich Mkhondo. In an email to Nikiwe I told her I presumed this was done to emphasise their independence. But if Google is up to date she is the founder and CEO of Amargi Media and Rich also has his own public relations company. From what I know about public relations firms, keeping in with the press is very much part of what they do when they want to get maximum exposure for their clients. So people who are still in this business can never be described as being 'independent,' if they form part of a panel that is investigating newspaper and journalistic ethics, even if they were once journalists of some kind and have since moved on into the public relations world. Some might argue that even journalists, who are retired  and are in no business at all, can't be described as 'independent' when heading an inquiry of this kind. I sent this to her on 21 July  and on 24 July I emailed her again saying that if I did not hear from her by the week-end (27 July) I would assume that everything in this email was was correct. I heard nothing from her, although she was 
the person who acknowledged the receipt of my submission.

LIES,LIES AND MORE LIES ARE WHAT TWO MASSIVE AFRIKAANS MEDIA GROUPS PRINT TO ENABLE SHYSTERS TO RIP OFF POOR BLACKS

Dear Readers,

Prof. George Claassen

          How can this possibly be allowed 24 years after the White apartheid government was replaced by a Black one? Are we back in those much hated apartheid days when South Africa’s Afrikaner rulers felt nothing for the welfare of the Blacks they were oppressing?

          Old habits die hard with Naspers and the Caxton Group it seems if they can get away with it, and do what big business so often does – make money with no regard for the ethics of what they are doing.

          Naspers, a multi national internet and media group offering services in 130 countries, does it through its Media24 newspapers.  And so does Caxton that has 88 titles in its newspaper division.

          They think nothing of continuing to print in various editions advertisements aimed at the poorest members of our society which they themselves agree are not believable.

          The ads, clearly aimed at Blacks, promote such obvious lies as penis enlargements and instant riches all with a 100% success guarantee. The purveyors of this deceit have equally unlikely titles such as Dr Bonga, Queen Apiah, Professor Habib, Chief Juba, King Abuja and a host of others.

          The Professor Habib ad was in Media24’s Daily Sun and this learned gentleman claimed to be the “strongest herbalist, healer from Egypt” who could bring back “lost loved ones”; make your “manhood strong and thick ”and “win lotto” etc.

          While it is unlikely that this no doubt fictitious title could be confused with Professor Adam Habib the Vice-chancellor and Principal of Wits University I think the papers are playing a dangerous game. They could just libel a real person.

          As far as I know it is illegal to call yourself a doctor when you are not one, but that doesn’t bother these newspapers one iota. Making money is all they are thinking about.

Citizen ads

          I began my efforts to stop these ads being printed with Caxton’s Johannesburg based daily The Citizen. Steven Motale the editor at the time conceded that these advertisements were “not believable.” He added that he felt his paper should still carry them with a “caution.”

          But when I said this would be an admission that his paper believed the ads were dubious he replied, “It’s a tough one. I’m going to take it up with the advertising department.”

          That was in 2013. Nothing changed however and the paper, which is publish Monday to Friday and has a daily circulation of 43 480, is still coining it out of these lies in the Herbalists section of the Classifieds.

          I have now turned my spotlight onto Media 24’s Daily Sun as well as its free weekly People’s Post which has 10 editions that are distributed door to door in Cape Town. The Sun that claims to be South Africa’s biggest daily has a circulation of 174 483 while People’s Post brags of a weekly print order of 318 495.

          So between them these two publications spread an awful lot of Herbalists lies week in and week out.

          What do you think happened when I asked Professor George Claassen Media24’s Ombudsman about these dubious ads? “I see that your group is not concerned about some of the ads it is happy to carry just to make money,” I told him in an email.

          He went even further than The Citizen’s editor by saying, “I agree with you, many of these ads are totally misleading and even fraudulent.”

          Claassen should know if anybody should. This former Professor of Journalism at Stellenbosch University has written a book on quackery which was an Afrikaans best seller.

Reggie Moalusi

 Reggie Moalusi Editor-in-Chief of the Daily and Sunday Sun told me, “I don’t believe in herbalists. But I don’t impose my views on our readers. There are people who believe in them.”

It’s a real cop out for Reggie to say he doesn’t impose his views on their readers when as an editor he must surely be making decisions almost daily that affect what the paper publishes on the editorial side.

Apart from heading these two papers he is also now the Secretary General of the South African National Editor’s Forum (SANEF), the organisation that gave me the complete brush off when I tried to raise the question of these dubious ads with it some years ago. This was in spite of the fact that it claims to be “committed to promoting and support ethical discourse and conduct in the South African media.”

However he was not a member of its Council then.

          The trouble is that so many newspapers conveniently regard their editorial and advertising sections as if they are completely different entities that have no affect on one another.

          When he was appointed Media24’s ombudsman Prof. Claassen was quoted as saying: “Journalists cannot hold other sections of society, such as politicians, public figures and the private sector to account if they do not apply the same standards of responsibility and accountability to their own profession.”

          Well what’s the point in expecting journalists to do this in the editorial side of newspapers when the ones I have mentioned give a shop window to people who are lying their heads off in these Herbalists advertisements?           

          I have taken examples from the two groups that illustrate the kind of morality that is going on. These make me believe that this kind of advertising could be even more widespread in these media empires and perhaps in other groups, than just in the publications I have mentioned. 

          Prof Claassen put the blame on the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) code for being “very vague on these types of advertising.” He then referred to the old White Man’s law of caveat emptor (buyer beware) which he said “also comes into play in which the user/buyer has a certain responsibility to also make informed judgements on whether to buy a produce or use a service.”

Esmare` Weideman

          Esmare` Weideman Media24’s Chief Executive Officer relied on the same excuses when I posed this question to her: “Why does your group continue to feel the need to make money out of lies that are used to rip off the poorest sections of our community.”

          “George is correct that the ASA rules are vague, and that the user/buyer has to exercise judgment. As you know, we have a disclaimer on all our ‘smalls’ advertising pages.”

          Both she and George ignore the fact that the ASA does not publish newspapers and nor does it have any direct say as to what goes into them. So just because the ASA is not doing its job by taking action to stop these advertising lies, does that mean papers are perfectly justified in continuing to make money out of them.

          Early in 2014 the ASA had an Ad-Alert list of 19 advertisers on its website and nearly half of these were traditional healers with names like Dr Bumba, Dr Rehema and Prof. Wakho. This list is sent to all its members to ensure that those with an adverse ruling, who have not responded, can not advertise again.

          At about the same time the ASA claimed  to have “ruled against such advertisements on numerous occasions, and it is hoped that the appropriate authorities will address this issue as it is no doubt causing harm to the credibility of legitimate healers and practitioners and this industry at large.”

          The ASA, which is controlled and paid for by the advertising industry, has conveniently been structured so that it does not have the powered to order papers as whole to stop taking these suspect ads. It can only deal with complaints about the ads themselves involving its own members and it doesn’t initiate anything without a complaint.

The one time consumer journalist on that paper

          What these two media groups are doing is an indictment of the ASA’s failure to do what it claims is the main reason why it was established – “to ensure its system of self - regulation works in the public interest.”

See: ridiculous advertising ASA

          As for the disclaimer Esmare` talked about that is a published verification that her group is fully aware that what it is doing is not remotely kosher. By just publishing these ads I believe the papers are giving the services offered a certain stamp of approval in the eyes of the less educated on the basis that they would not expect their paper to lie to them.

          Here’s the one in the Daily Sun with my comments in brackets. It is headed Important Notice to Readers and goes on to tell them in the smallest of print that the paper “has not verified whether any of the services or products advertised are safe to use or will have the desired effect or outcome (Why is the paper promoting them if it is so doubtful about how genuine they are?). Readers will note that some of the promised results in the advertisements are extraordinary and may be impossible to achieve (That’s just glossing over what a lot of people would recognise as lies).  Beware some of the procedures advertised may be dangerous if not executed by a qualified medical practitioner (These ads promote some people as qualified doctors when they are obvious not). Readers are warned that they should carefully consider the advertiser’s credentials (How are the unsophisticated people who are evidently taken in by the mumbo jumbo of these herbalists supposed to do this?).”

          It ends by saying “Daily Sun does not accept any liability whatsoever in respect of any of the services and goods advertised (How can this possibly be right when the paper is promoting what it admits are lies and without its advertisements these shysters would have great difficulty in reaching the people they are out to con. In this case relying on the old buyer beware law is like driving the wrong way on a motorway with a sign on the back of your vehicle that says ‘My lawyer assures me that I cannot be blamed if anyone crashes into me because they have a duty to watch where they are going’).”

          What really should have happened long ago is that the journalists in these media groups should have exposed all these bogus doctors, professors and the like in an effort to stop them continuing to rip off the unsuspecting poor. Instead their papers have shown deplorably double standards by not dealing appropriately with that lying hand that feeds them, while still continuing to reveal the shortcomings of others in our society.

Regards,

Jon, a Consumer Watchdog of long standing and Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman, who does his best to tell as few lies as possible. And if by chance he does tells one he is happy to correct it and not blame it on a reader’s poor eyesight, the Blog Council or some other pathetic reason.
See: citizen's lies

P.S.  I have been campaigning for some time on my blog to get The Citizen to stop taking these ads. But whatever I did I could not get it to cease publishing them. Although the ASA has deplored these ads it is clear that it is not serious about getting papers to stop taking these money spinners. When I tried to lodge complaints about the ads with the ASA I was given a complete run around. I was referred to the Print & Digital Media SA (now defunct) in 2014. Caxton was one of the members. They also claimed they did not have the power to stop this kind of advertising and I was referred back to the ASA. I then tried Terry Moolman, Caxton’s CEO and co-founder. He didn’t reply but his PA emailed me to say my inquiry had been passed to Paul Jenkins, Caxton’s Group Chairman and Chairman of the Social and Ethics Committee. I got no reply from him either and the lies continue to be printed in the Herbalist section of The Citizen. It also blocked me on Twitter as some kind of reprisal for exposing its dubious advertising practice on my blog. I was equally unsuccessful when I tried to get SANEF to take a stand against these ads. It claims to be “founded on high ideals in an industry that around the world is often maligned for its lack of integrity,” yet Mathata Tsedu, its director at the time didn’t bother to reply to my email even though I phoned him to make sure he got it. He is a former editor of City Press, which is a Sunday paper in the Media24 stable. Editors clearly won’t take a stand against newspapers over this for fear of putting their jobs on the line in a relatively small media environment.
But I have no job to lose.