SHOULD THE PRESS STILL BE JUDGED BY ITS OWN OMBUDSMAN

Dear Newspaper readers,

          South Africa’s Press Ombudsman Johan Retief has shown once again what a bad idea it is to have the press policing itself.

          Tucked away in the one corner of Page 5 of the Sunday Times of December 16 was a tiny story headed Press Council RULING Apology to Collins Letsoalo.

          This was a retraction of everything it published in its June 24 issue under the heading “Pay it back, AG tells Prasa’s 350% boss.” It apologised to Collins, the former acting CEO of South Africa’s Passenger Rail Agency (Prasa) for “falsely, misleadingly and unfairly stating, both in the story and in the headlines, that the auditor-general had issued a special report on the matter and ordered Letsoalo to pay back the money to Prasa.”

          The office of the AG has categorically denied that it issued any such “special report,” it went on.

          “We apologise to Letsoalo for creating the false, misleading and unfair impression that he had obtained money to which he was not entitled, thereby unnecessarily tarnishing his dignity and reputation.”

          It ended by telling us that Letsoalo had complained to the Press Ombudsman who had found in his favour and that readers could find the full story on the Press Council’s website.

          This brief apology gave readers, who had not been following the story very little idea of what it was all about. Any other flaky report like this would be quite unacceptable elsewhere in the paper.

The little apology is on the right if you can see it

          The original story that carried the lies was a page lead yet, as so often happens, the Ombudsman lets papers get away with apologies which are given nothing like the same prominence as the stories that cause the damage to people’s reputations. It’s clear that they are being allowed to make them as inconspicuous as possible so that as few people as possible see that their paper cannot be trusted.

The original story

In this case Retief’s conclusion that the reporter, who did the story was a liar, was conveniently not published in the paper but left on the Ombudsman’s website for readers to go and find it for themselves.

The same applied to Retief’s very damning remarks.

Like: “Need I say what immense damage such reporting does to the credibility of the South African media in general, and the Sunday Times in particular.”

And: “I have hardly, if indeed ever, seen such misleading, unfair and untrue statements in a headline.” And, as the Ombudsman, he has been dealing with complaints like this for 10 years, although he recent resigned and will leave his position in the New Year.

The name of Caiphus Kgosana, the reporter responsible for damaging the Sunday Times’ reputation so badly, was not even mentioned in the apology that appeared in the paper.

The background to the story is that after Letsoalo was appointed acting CEO of Prasa the Sunday Times dubbed him the 350% boss for increasing his annual salary from R1.7 million to R5.9 million. The Board decided to dismiss him after the story appeared, although he was subsequently vindicated by a judge who ruled that he was entitled to the increase as it was in line with what his predecessor was getting.

The judge’s decision was made before the controversial story appeared and Letsoalo claimed that Kgosana agreed to quote the judgement to give balance to any report he wrote. But this never happened.

Dealing with the claim in the Sunday Times story that the Auditor-general had issued a special report in which he ordered Letsoalo to pay back the increase, Retief stated that the AG’s office had denied ever issuing such a report or telling Prasa that the increase had to be repaid.

He wrote that he had given the paper ample time to “provide me with the special report that Kgosana says he has seen and from which he has quoted so lavishly.

“I have no other explanation for Kgosana’s inability/refusal to provide me with this document than one of the following alternatives:

·      Either there is no such document, in which case the journalist has deliberately misled the public, his own  newspaper, and this office; or

·      He has accepted the existence of a forged document as a real one, without proper verification.

     “I am highly suspicious of Kgosana’s failure to provide me with the report.”

          He believed the first alternative was the most likely one.

          “This can only mean one thing,” he added. “The journalist has deliberately misled all and sundry.”

          Retief ruled that the apology the paper had to print should be on Page 3 which was the same page where the original story appeared. 

          He also decided that due to the “seriousness of the matter” the Sunday Times had to carry a so called kicker on its front page that had to include the word apology and Letsoalo’s name “referring to the text on Page 3” – Ha! Ha!

But the Sunday Times didn’t regard it with the same seriousness. It ignored this directive and put the apology on Page 5, presumably on the basis that it was less likely to be seen the further into the paper it was placed. In any case the front page kicker was so innocuous it would not have alerted many people to the existence of the apology.

Letsoalo has threatened to sue the Sunday Times, Prasa and its former executives for R20-million for loss of income and defamation. 
Newspapers would be less likely to behave badly like this if they knew they would have to publish an apology just as prominently as the original story, at the very least. That’s what should happen automatically if proper justice was to prevail instead of these token wishy -washy, penalties that are the inevitable result of an industry that has got away for years with a system of judging itself.

Retief told me that he always directed a publication where to publish the apology, “even determining that the word ‘apology’ be published in the headline.

“It depended on the seriousness of the transgression. Normally I direct a newspaper to publish on the same page. In some instances I have gone to page one even though the transgression was not on that page. A few times I have taken a whole page.”

  Inexplicably he told me he did not know what I meant when I asked him this: “Why is it that you allowed a newspaper like the Sunday Times, which is not an on-line publication, to merely refer its readers to your website for the most damning part of your ruling in this particular case?”

          In a supplementary question to the one above I asked if it was his normal practice to allow newspaper apologies to carry just a small part of his ruling in print and then refer readers to the Press Council’s website?

          He merely answered: “I always ask a newspaper to publish the sanction – this is normal practice.”

          He assured me that as soon as his office reopened after the Christmas recess the Sunday Times would be told to repeat the Letsoalo apology, this time on page 3. As far as I know this never happened.

You would think our lying reporter would be in for the high jump, especially as the SundayTimes has been forced to carry a rash of whole page, record setting apologies in the last couple of years.

As recently as Oct 2018 the Sunday Times carried a screed by media
 strategist Chris Vick to try and convince us that it had reformed. This
was part of it, but the tall stories keep getting printed

         You would be wrong. The week after the apology appeared Caiphus Kgosana’s name was the first of two in the byline for the papers’ front page lead story, as if nothing had happened.

But this is nothing new. It took ages for it to get rid of its long time ‘ace’ investigative reporter Mzilikazi wa Afrika for mixing fiction with fact. And then it continued to employ Jim Jones as a freelance writer in its business section (Business Times) for eight years after it knew he was a thief.

Regards,

Jon, the Poorman’s Press Ombudsman who worked on the Sunday Times in the days when its fairy tales were true (goldilocks and big business).

P.S. Before I had seen his tweet I sent Kgosana an email telling him briefly what I intending writing and I invited him to make any comments he wished on the Ombudsman’s damning report. I also asked him how current this Linkedin profile was and he never replied although I got a read report.

If this is correct is he the right person to be teaching
journalism at a university?

Note:The Press Ombudsman comes under the Press Council that has been established by the media industry to police it with the aim of maintaining a high standard of ethics. It only has the power to make rulings involving its member publications and it can’t order any of its members to pay damages. Aggrieved parties, who believe this is what they deserve, have to go to the supreme court for that.

SUNDAY TIMES EDITOR APOLOGISES FOR PAPER'S LIES WITH ANOTHER WHOPPER

Dear Bongani Siqoko,  

Editor of the Sunday Advertiser aka Sunday Times,

          I feel terribly sorry for you. They take you from that piddling little Daily Dispatch (Circulation 25 000) in East London (population260 000) and make you Editor of the country’s top selling national paper, the Sunday Times (Circ. 260 000) that operates out of Johannesburg, our biggest city (pop.1-million). That was at the end of 2015.

          Ever since then you have been the face of record breaking Sunday Times apologies.

You were just getting into the hot seat in December 2015, when the Press Ombudsman gave you his Christmas and Welcome to the Sunday Times present. It was his ruling that the ‘rogue unit’ expose` about the SA Revenue Service (SARS) was rubbish. It had been running for months and he order that your new paper must retract everything and apologise in writing.

          One has to wonder what really went on here. Pearlie Joubert, a member of your paper’s investigative team at the time, says she was isolated when she began to question what was going on. What was the motive for ignoring the very perceptive alarm bell she was ringing? Could it have been something more than just a front page lead?

          When she could not get her message through, she very bravely resigned.

          She’s was the real hero of that disgraceful chapter in the history, of a once proud newspaper. What she did is actually the front page lead for next week, but of course you will never print it.

The REAL HERO Pearlie Joubert: She's laughing here
but it was no joke on the Sunday Times

          Did you know at the time that you were being brought right across the country just to be thrown among the Great Whites, without a cage, almost straight away? Soon afterwards you had to explain that whole page apology that appeared in April 2016.

          At the time your appointment was announced Andrew Bonamour, Times Media (Now Tiso Blackstar – the Group changes it’s name more often than a chameleon changes colour) CEO had this to say about the outgoing editor Phylicia Oppelt, under whose watch these lies occurred: “We are delighted that Phylicia will remain with the group and help drive the exiting changes across the titles.”

          What?  Just when she had so completely messed up. Why wasn’t she asked to explain how it happened, instead of you, in that whole page apology? And where is she now - still driving “those exiting changes?”

          Today I see you are at it again, apologising once more for cock-ups that occurred even before Oppelt was the Editor. Now it’s all about the 2011 Police “death squad” lies that appeared when Ray Hartley was the Editor.

          These, as you say, “created the impression that Gen Johan Booysen was operationally in charge of the unit, and by association directly and personally responsibly for the killings.”

          Only a trivial libel that just happened to be completely untrue.

          You gave Booysen a lot of space to have his say. Unfortunately this shows how meaningless these apologies of yours are, if your paper and other sections of the Tiso Group go on employing the same journalists, who have proved conclusively that they can be relied upon to get it wrong in a big way.

          The scribes mentioned in the bylines on the stories you are apologising for now are Stephan Hofstatter, Mzilikazi wa Africa and Rob Rose.

                                                *     *     *     *     *     *

Breaking News

            In having his say Booysen told us that he had to contact the Editor Hartley to “demand to be heard” to give his side of the story, when that’s one of the basics of journalism that every cub reporter gets told: Always get both sides of the story.

            Hofstatter then comes to see him and they had a recorded teleconference with Wa Africa. Booysen tells them that the photographs they had of dead suspects had nothing to do with the story they are doing. He also told them that he knew their “sources” and that they were being investigated by the Hawks.

          Undeterred your ace investigators “evidently made no effort to verify the facts with the institutions” Booysen had referred them to. “Instead the versions of the suspects under investigation were published,” Booysen went on.

          This Don’t let the facts spoil a good story team then ensured that the gruesome pictures of the bodies appeared with their story when, as Booysen had told them, they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

How brainless was that?  These were supposed to be senior journalists behaving like naughty kids. 

Your apology today, which is full of excuses, loses any value it might have because you have including something that is clearly not true. What good is there in saying Sorry for our lies and then explain why with another one.

“We were in pursuit of nothing but the truth and we were not motivated by political, commercial or personal interests,” you told readers. “We stood to gain nothing from reporting on these issues, but merely fulfilling our constitutional obligation to inform you”(Isn't "were" missing somewhere?).

What a lot of guff. Is the Sunday Times now a charity? Does it not need money to exist? Your paper was purely motivated by getting exclusive, sensational stories that increase readership and the profits that flow from that.

I know we are supposed to have a very good constitution, but I can’t find the section that says newspapers have a duty to inform us. It’s probably just me. I can’t see for looking.

Bongani, I accept that you can’t be blamed for the fictitious scoops that appeared before your time, but some odd things have happened while you’ve been in charge.

For a start how can you still have Wa Africa doing investigations for your paper and having regular front page leads?  He should have been bowled out as soon as it was apparent that the police death squad story was rotten to the core.

He was still there after Jacques Pauw’s book The President’s Keepers came out in October 2017.  In the book he accused Hofstatter and Wa Africa of “Helping Zuma’s keepers to destroy the finest law enforcement institution in the country.” He was talking about a group of people in SARS who lost their jobs as a result of the “rogue unit,” to which your paper gave credence to.

There’s perhaps a follow up book for him: The Rogue Unit at the Sunday Times – the inside story.

The Terrible Twins - Hofstatter & Wa Afrika

Then too you should have known that freelance Jim Jones was a crook when the Business Times, your business section, continued to use him.(love affair with a crook)  You were also very much in charge when that whole page, paid African National Congress anti Democratic Alliance plug, masquerading as a news story, appeared.(dropping moral standards)

I know you don’t decide these things but the management of your group must also be censored for making Rob Rose the Editor of the Financial Mail and keeping  Hofstatter on reporting for the this publication and Business Day. His excuse for going astray was that they were “under pressure for scoops.” This is the life of every reporter, so imagine what it would be like if they all come up with fairytales.

Both Rose and Hofstatter have written allegedly factual books about shady goings on. One has to wonder now, how much of these are actually fiction.

Regards,

Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman, who tries to keep his factual fiction to a minimum. I must add that my only motive in writing this blog is to put the world right without any thought of being rewarded.

SUNDAY TIMES LOTTO JOURNALISM - HOW IT WORKS

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Pravin Gordhan

          The Johannesburg based Sunday Times is using lotto journalism with increasing regularity. This is in spite of the fact that the Editor Bongani Siqoko told us last month, as part of a whole page apology about its so called “SARS rogue unit” expose`, that they had got “some things wrong” and one of the reasons was they “overly relied on our sources.”

          This didn’t stop the paper doing exactly the same thing this last Sunday to boost its sensational front page splash Pravin ‘arrest’ shock.

          How what I have dubbed “lotto journalism” works is this. The paper decides on the most sensational line for the story and then gives you, the reader this regardless of the facts by using anonymous “sources.”

The apology 3 April 

          The most glaring example of this was in its latest episode of its “rogue unit” saga that has been going on for two years. It was about how Pravin Gordhan South Africa’s current Minister of Finance and eight other former South African Revenue Service officials, who were said to have been members of the “unit,” were about to be prosecuted for “espionage.”

          The paper claimed that the unit, which was supposed to have illegally spied on tax payers among other things, was formed when Gordhan headed SARS as its Commissioner.

          In its last Sunday edition the paper quoted the National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku as saying: “It is incorrect that a decision has been made to prosecute anyone. The matter is still under investigation.”

Sunday 15 May

          Keeping that bad journalism cliché “don’t let the facts spoil a good story” well and truly alive the paper then covered itself both ways by falling back on its unreliable “sources” with this:

          “But highly placed NPA sources confirmed that national director of public prosecutions Shaun Abrahams ‘is ready to prosecute.’”

          That made Mfaku out to be a liar.

          The reliability of the Sunday Times’ “sources” was exposed a day later on the Monday when The Times, a daily in the same Times Media stable as the Sunday Times, came out with Reprieve for Gordhan as its front page lead.

          It quoted Abrahams, the man the Sunday Times inexplicably could not get hold of, as saying: “It is completely incorrect to say that anyone is going to be arrested or even faces arrest.”

          The Sunday Times story which ran from the front page onto page two contained allegations and information in no less than seven statements from anonymous “sources” and stated as fact that “Gordhan is being accused of breaching the Intelligence Act for his role in the formation of the ‘rogue unit’ when he headed SARS.”

Monday 16 May

          The trouble with relying on these is that anyone can sit in an office and make up quotes from “sources” to make a story more sensational. And if the paper is ever called upon to prove in court the allegations made by one of these anonymous people it would not be able to do it because journalists conveniently have a long standing tradition of never revealing their “sources.”

          Siqoko emphasised this aspect in that whole page apology, which must have been some kind of record, when he wrote that it was their responsibility “to build, sustain and protect a relationship with our sources.”

          As the Sunday Times and The Times have now given us conflicting versions of the story one of them must be lying.  And my “sources” tell me it is the Sunday Times.

Van Loggerenberg

          In that whole page apology on April 3 2016 that I mentioned earlier Johann van Loggerenberg, SARS Group Executive, Tax & Custom Enforcement and Ivan Pillay, the Deputy Commissioner, both of whom the paper had accused of being part of the “rogue unit” were allowed to have their say under the banner headline: Finally we agree to lay to rest the controversy surrounding SARS and the Sunday Times even though both of them had resigned from the tax department.

          Van Loggerenburg’s statement was headed: ‘Rogue’ unit never broke the law and was very effective. And Pillay’s one put the case against the Sunday Times in a nutshell with: The ‘rogue unit’ narrative was a great disservice to public interest, and made up of lies and distortions.

Pillay

          On the other side of the page under Our response the Editor Siqoko sort to justify this huge climb down as being an “amicable settlement.” He confessed that in the 30 or so reports that had been in the paper so far about the unit they had got things right but had also got some wrong and had also given incomplete information.

          He blamed their unnamed “sources” for some of the problems and conceded that they had stated some allegations as fact.

          What he wrote about the investigation in general gave the impression that the newsgathering short-comings of the paper were a lot more serious than just the ones that had occurred in this inquiry

          “The SARS story has given us an opportunity to take a closer look at our news-gathering and production processes,” he told readers.

          “We have found some serious gaps. Efforts are being made to close these.”

          In a block at the end of his response he stated that “an amicable settlement’ had been reached with the two men “in respect of various matters before the Press Ombudsman” and in terms of this all Ombudsman (presumably the complaints the two men had made) matters would be withdrawn by all parties. Van Loggerenberg had also agreed not to institute any civil claims against the paper.

          “The settlement is considered full and final and on this basis no further actions will be taken.”

          This latest Sunday Times report names Van Loggerenberg and Pillay as being among the ex-SARS employees likely to be arrested. It now raises this BIG QUESTION: HAS THE PAPER BROKEN THE SPIRIT OF THE AGREEMENT, AT THE VERY LEAST, BY TARNISHING THE IMAGE OF THE TWO MEN ONCE AGAIN, THIS TIME EVEN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN BEFORE?

          Far from laying to rest the controversy surrounding SARS and the Sunday Times this has made it a lot worse, especially if it turns out to be “made up of lies and distortions” as Pillay labelled the earlier reports.  

          According to the story the Hawks, the country’s top investigative unit, had handed over a case docket to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for a decision to prosecute.

          Since the beginning of the year the paper has published quite a few apologies for not getting both sides of the story in various reports and it now appears to have done that again.        

          Van Loggerenburg was quoted as saying he had “done nothing wrong”

 and would co-operate with any investigation.

          There was no mention of Pillay having been contacted and of the other people named two were said to be “unavailable”, another one “did not respond to questions,” while “Gordhan’s office declined to comment.”

None of the three reporters (why you need three for one story is beyond me) doing the investigation appear to have even tried to speak to the other three men named.

As this was not any run of the mill story I would have thought the Sunday Times would have been more circumspect than usual, especial in view of the history, to make sure it go everything absolutely right.

          If Gordhan was to be arrested it was expected to plunge the country into a new financial crisis similar to what happened when President Zuma axed Nhlanhla Nene, who had only been in the Finance Minister’s job for seven months. He was replaced with little known, small town mayor David van Rooyen, before being shifting four days later.

Van Rooyen had his cabinet post swapped with Gordhan, the Minister of Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs at the time.

          Even two of the Sunday Time’s own reporters were not happy with the paper’s handling of this long running investigation. Pearlie Joubert resigned after taking it to task when Phylicia Oppelt was still in the Editor’s chair for what she believed was the unethical way the probe had been conducted. This was denied by the paper.

          Piet Rampedi, who with other reporters had gathered evidence of what the paper claimed showed that SARS had spied illegally on taxpayers, took to Twitter under the user name Mr. Putin to slam the agreement that was made with the two tax men.

          “Yes ST’s bleeding commercially. But we're so desperate 4 adverts & 2 please Gordhan that we sell editorial integrity,” was one tweet followed by:

          “Despite a self-serving deal between ST & criminal suspects I believe our stories were factual and can prove in court.”

          As you can imagine these outbursts are hardly likely to advance their journalist careers. Rampedi is also no longer with the Sunday Times.

          To be fair to Siqoko he only became the Sunday Times Editor at the beginning of the year, so the majority of the “Rogue unit” stories were published under his predecessor Oppelt, who was moved “up stairs” as the saying goes.

          Did the way this SARS intrigued was revealed have anything to do with this? My “sources” are mum on that.

          Regards

          Jon, The Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

P.S.  See also: jonas story & lotto journalism; is sunday times aiming for junk status;     sunday times needs truth drug

             

          

SOUTH AFRICA'S SUNDAY ECHO'S RUGGER BUGGER UP

Dear Newspaper Readers,
          A month ago almost to the day the new Editor of the Johannesburg based Sunday Times Bongani Siqoko told us in a whole page apology that the story in question had “given us an opportunity to take a closer look at our news-gathering and production.”

          “We have found serious gaps,” he confessed and he promised that efforts would be made to close these.

April 3 2016

          He appeared to be only referring the Sunday Times’ investigative and news gathering shortcomings as these were the areas involved in the so called “SARS (South African Revue Service) Rogue Unit” expose` that prompted this massive about-face.

          This was published after the Press Ombudsman (that’s my better half) had ruled that the reporting had been “inaccurate, misleading and unfair.” (sunday times needs a truth drug).

          But I would have thought that what happened in these areas would have made him take a closer look at the paper in its entirety especially as it had carried an apology of one form or another almost every week since he took over as Editor at the beginning of this year(sunday times aiming for junk status).

          This might have avoided today’s Sports section clanger that announced, once again, that nobody seems to read the whole of the Sunday Times before it is allowed on the streets.

          On Page 17 of today’s edition the report of the Lions vs Hurricanes rugby match by Sbu Mjikeliso, which was the second most prominent story on the page, was headlined: Lions given a real whipping by the Canes.

1 May 2016 Page 17

          Then three pages later on the back page (The main Sports page) the lead headline proclaimed: LIONS GIVEN A REAL WHIPPING.

          And there the echo of Mjikeliso’s story was WORD FOR WORD.

1 May 2016 and in the middle of the page
at the bottom it said: "More Super Rugby
Action: Page 17"

          It’s a long time since I last worked on a newspaper and I know they are going through tough times, but do they still have a Sports Editor and general sub-editors?

If that is the case where were they when such an obvious echo was allowed to fall through the pages in spectacular colour as well – at that well known journo’s club, THE PUB perhaps?

          Last year the paper’s main front page lead echoed in a similar fashion onto the front page of the business section or Business Times as it is called.

          Siqoko can’t be blamed for that as the Editor then was Phylicia Oppelt, who got moved “upstairs” as the saying goes.

          You have to ask if changing editors has helped. Could there be something wrong with the management at Times Media the owners of the Sunday Times.

          Regards

          Jon, The Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.

P.S. Just as well he’s too poor to buy more than one paper, you might be thinking.

P.P.S. See also:Special protection for media lies

IS SUNDAY TIMES JOURNALISM AIMING FOR JUNK STATUS

 Dear Bongani Sigoko, Editor of the Sunday Times,

          I know you have only been in the job of heading South Africa’s best selling national Sunday paper for a few editions but is there any chance of you arresting the journalistic rot that has set in on your paper.

          The Sunday Times is giving a new impetus to that old cliché “You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

          How else can you explain the “Matter of fact” apologies that are becoming such a regular feature on Page 2 with other more serious ones getting slightly more exposure elsewhere.

          The question readers will increasingly be asking is: Apart from these apologies is the rest of it a “matter of fact”?

          What’s the thinking behind these half hearted, grudgingly given confessions that never appear with anything like the same prominence as the original story?

          I accept that the Press Ombudsman, Johan Retief has ordered your paper to print some of them. But when it comes to the voluntary ones are they there to appease the complainants with the aim of preventing them taking the matter any further or are they there to show your paper has done the right thing by admitting it was wrong?

          One thing is certain however and that is they all advertise your paper’s declining journalistic standards.

          For a newspaper that expects others to be open it keeps very quiet about the members of your editorial team who have been responsible for these clangers.

          You happily protect your own from the glare of publicity while you have no qualms about taking other people to task in print for their shortcomings.

          You even choose a Mampara to have a go at the person you judge to have done the stupidest thing of the week.

          Last Sunday it was the turn of Dan Retief, whose glittering career as a sports writer, TV presenter and author over a period of 40 years can’t have been bettered by many. He is the only journalist to have been the Sports Writer of the Year on three occasions and in the early nineties he was a Senior Correspondent for your paper.

          So presumably to emphasise the Sunday Times’ impartiality whoever writes these things couldn’t resist putting the boot in when Retief was forced to apologise for a controversial Twitter comment that got him into trouble.

          “It is not often that one who has graced the pages of this august newspaper with his pen in the past ends up being the Mampara,” your attack on him began.

          How august, prestigious, esteemed or illustrious can a paper be when its poor reporting is producing an increasing amount of questionable stories?

          You castigated him for “earning this dubious honour” while there must be other journalists who would qualify for Mamparadom, if only they were not protected by still being on your staff.

          Then too your Retief dig showed up another of your paper’s journalistic deficiencies. The writer evidently assumed that all the Sunday Time’s 3-million or so readers would know what Retief’s “remarks” were, so there was no need to tell them. It was left to those who didn’t know to use their imagination.

          What school of journalism teaches this?

          An Afrikaner himself Retief tweeted: “SA carried to victory by two White Afrikaners … politicians and media commentators take note …for what it is worth.” 
This was after our national cricket team's win against England.   

In a country where Blacks outnumber Whites by nearly 10 to 1 this caused the inevitable outcry which Retief had no way of justifying. But if your paper is going to chastise him the way it has done it should also have the guts to tell its readers who your current journalists are who can’t bring their fairy tales down to earth.

As you no doubt know he apologised soon afterwards but it was too late to prevent City Press, that other Sunday paper that is aimed mainly at Black readers, from deciding not to take his articles in future. He had evidently been freelancing for that publication.

Just in case you don’t know exactly what I am referring to here is your paper’s most recent “sorry” story.

6. December 2015: An Editorial headed Our commitment to the truth is absolute. Not only was this in itself not true but the entire Editorial was more fiction than anything else
 (the-sunday-times-badly-needs-truth-drug.      
 and  press-councils-special-protection-for.). 
And it wasn't made any more truthful by your paper's admissions that followed in the next few weeks.

20. December 2015: This Apology to the Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan was not one of your paper’s voluntary ones. You were ordered to carry it by the Press Ombudsman so I can’t understand why your paper waited for his ruling before conceding that “We accept we were in breach of the Press Code for failing to seek Gordhan’s comment ahead of publication.” That’s one of the basics of journalism that every cub reporter gets taught - to always get both sides of the story. So wouldn’t you have expected this to have been uppermost in the reporter’s mind, particularly when he was writing an expose` involving somebody as important at the Minister of Finance?

          31. January 2016: Here was another embarrassing climb down your paper was forced to make by the Press Ombudsman. The headline Apology to Lakela Kauda cried out that the Sunday Times was in the mire once again.

14. February 2016: This Matter of Fact was a double bill. First of all your paper apologised for attributing something to the wrong Government Minister in a story appropriately entitled: “Five years of denial, cover-ups and bluster.” The next part emphasised once again that your entire staff are very slow learners. The second part was yet another admission that the writer had failed to get both sides of the story. Of course this is not only a reflection of the reporter’s apparent ignorance but also of the sub-editor who dealt with it and an Editor who allows this kind of thing to persist. You do have sub-editors in this high tech age or am I still in my typewriter and shorthand days at your paper? 

           21. February 2016: I assume that even in these ostensibly serious Matter of Facts your paper likes to have a bit of fun now and again. I don’t know if you’ve seen how laughable this one is. Readers were told that Gabs Mtshala did not say what your paper claimed he had said about Ngqula. It added, “We also neglected to give Ngqula an opportunity to respond to the allegation.” What! Ideally one of your reporters should have asked Ngqula to respond to a non-existent allegation. This also shows that not getting both sides of the story is endemic on your paper. I managed to track down the “Dicksy says he’s no criminal” piece which has the bylines of Bongani Magasela and David Isaacson on the top. This raises the question: Who was to blame for this shoddy bit of journalism. Even with two scribes tackling this rather ordinary tale your paper couldn’t get it right. This report, which ran right across the top of a page, illustrated perfectly how your apologies are given nothing like the prominence of the original story.

          In 2008 your paper’s news room was in such disarray that an independent panel was appointed to establish what was wrong and how it could be fixed. Perhaps it’s time you had another one of these before things get any worse.

          Regards,

          Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman, who gives the other side of the story.