Sunday Times - haven for dubious adverts

Dear Sunday Times internal ombudsman Joe Latakgomo,

         Two years ago the story I instigated was headed Taking a stand on unsavoury adverts. That was written by your predecessor Thabo Leshilo, who disappeared with out a trace earlier this year.

         It arose after I complained that this paper, South Africa’s largest weekly with over 3-million readers, was carrying suspect get-rich-quick ads that could easily result in unsuspecting investors losing a fortune.

In the story Leshilo wrote, he said that adverts like the rest of the paper should be believable.

But the headline certainly wasn’t because far from taking a stand, the paper continued to accept this type of adverting in spite of my continuous campaign to get it stopped.

Unfortunately I didn’t keep a copy of the article and it was nowhere to be found when the Press Council’s deputy ombudsman Dr Johan Retief asked for it.

Stranger still Leshilo told him that he didn't know what I was talking about.

The latest in the saga is another story, once again instigated by my complaints. This time it was your handiwork and was headed Beware of dubious adverting claims.

          As you rightly said, Such advertising erodes the public’s trust in newspapers. But, even more critical, false advertising, or advertising that makes claims which are patently exaggerated, impacts on consumer confidence.

       That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell your Avusa Group (Sunday Times, The Times, Sowetan, etc) for these many months. But from what you wrote your Group is still refusing to listen.

         It is happy to sit back and passed the buck to the Advertising Standards Authority, which has the job of policing adverts, although as far as I know it doesn’t go looking for trouble. It only deals with complaints. So as your papers can’t do anything decisive about these ads I have just submitted my own complaints to that body.

         The really pathetic part about the whole issue is that it is the Sunday Times and other papers in your Group that are publishing this reprehensible stuff that erodes the public trust in newspapers and not the Advertising Authority.

So if they had any morality at all they would put their own house in order and stop making excuses.

         What’s the point in punting the Sunday Time’s consumer watchdog, Megan Power in whole page adverts all over the place, if your own papers are making it easy for dodgy, get-rich-quick schemes to be promoted to a vast audience.

         In the same edition of the Sunday Times in which your story appeared mentioning my complaint there was an ad telling us we could earn R25 000 per month for an investment of just R100 000 with a money back guarantee. And best of all this fantastic return involves, No work. No effort. No Hassles. 

I challenger you, or any member of Avusa’s staff, to take up  this offer, and tell me how their investment is progressing in a year’s time.

You seem to think that by publishing a WARNING to readers to be careful about making investments this absolves your papers from any blame if somebody loses their shirt in one of these schemes.

Clearly they are not a bit bothered about eroding public trust in newspapers and it is this kind of attitude that sunk the News of the World.

What makes this even more inexplicable is that you say that this type of advertising forms only a small part of the total advertising revue. So why do the papers stubbornly hang on to something that can only damage their reputations?

We will continue as journalists to expose those who cheat and lie to our readers, those who compromise our integrity and damage our credibility as news sources for our readers, you wrote.

We are distressed by the number of scams that infiltrate our pages and cheat our readers. If that’s the case have you stopped to think who is aiding and abetting them?

You, or the Royal We, are so distressed that I wonder how many of these dicey schemes that have been advertised in the Sunday Times and other papers in your group have ever been investigated by a reporter.

My guess is: absolutely none in the last two years since I have been monitoring the situation.

Yours watchfully,

Jon, The Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.

Press Council's brand of Justice - Part I

Dear Newspaper Readers,

          This is the first of a two part series on the spat the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman has had with Big Brother, the South African Press Council. It threw my complaints against the Sunday Times out on their ear.

          They only got to second base where former judge Ralph Zulman, the head of the Appeals Panel decided they didn’t merit consideration by the other members of that body. He refused me leave to appeal.

          He inadvertently introduced humour into this solemn occasion when he emailed me his finding. When I told him I couldn’t open it he sent it to the Council’s offices to have it passed on only to receive this reply, Judge please fax us your decision as we also can’t open the attachment.

          The Press Council’s inefficiency was highlighted once again at the bottom of the fax I finally got when the judge added; I regret the delay in this matter. The relevant papers only reached me last week.

          That was nearly four months after I had lodged an appeal after my case had been dismissed by Dr Johan Retief, the Deputy Ombudsman.

          The Council can dawdle along but aggrieved readers are expected to complain within 14 days of a disputed article appearing and lodge an appeal within seven days if the Ombudsman’s decision is disputed.

          Let’s be serious; it’s no laughing matter for the Sunday Times, with its vast circulation, to be dragged before the Press Council to have it’s morals questioned by this nobody who calls himself the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman. After all isn’t the Sunday Times such a pillar of rectitude that it is entitled to police everybody else’s behaviour?

          The Council (slogan: Effective self-regulation is the best system for promoting high standards in the media) holds itself up as a shining example of how well it’s brand of justice works. It adjudicates on complaints against the mighty Press, or the Fourth Estate if you want to be posh.

          You’ll never see a report in any paper of my case because papers are only compelled to publish the result when the complaint is upheld. The centuries old maxim that justice needs to be seen to be done gets conveniently bypassed. It’s a cosy arrangement to avoid embarrassing papers that are always attacking Government and other organisations for trying to keep their secrets.

          Complainants are kept pretty well in the dark about what is going on behind the scenes. They don’t get a copy of the allegations that have been put to the accused and nor are they given full details as to what the defence is maintaining.

          Here’s what happened when I took the Sunday Times to task over stories that appeared in the Business Times section of that paper so you can judge just how good or bad this keep-it-in-the-family system works.

          Apart from the newspaper itself my other antagonist was Thabo Leshilo, an impressive heavyweight in South African journalism. Harvard educated he had been editor of the Pretoria News and Business Times and Editor-in-Chief of the Sunday World and the Sowetan.

          He became the Public Editor for the Avusa Group, which owns the Sunday Times among other publications, more than a year ago. He was billed as the person who takes up complaints on behalf of readers, making him the Group’s in-house ombudsman. So it was to him that I directed my concerns.

·       First Complaint. I drew his attention to the dubious investment advertisements that were appearing in the Sunday Times because I felt that a lot of people, particularly pensioners, often got tempted by these get-rich-quick schemes and ended up losing everything. The paper clearly had its doubts about these ads because it warned readers to be careful where they put their money as the paper could not vouch for the claims made by advertisers.  Leshilo evidently agreed with me. The half page report he wrote that appeared in the Sunday Times mentioned my name and that the Group’s advertising manager had agreed to be choosier about accepting this type of ad. Leshilo wise words were that ads, like the rest of the paper had to be believable. The new policy did not last long before it reverted back to type with promoters promising investors ‘30% interest’ on their money and other too-good-to-be-true opportunities.

·       Second Complaint. Noseweek, South Africa’s investigative magazine carried a story headed High on the Hog. How Jim Jones ripped off his website employers and then spun the story. It told how this former editor of Johannesburg’s Business Day, who was now writing for the business section of the Sunday Times, had pocketed $20 487 belonging to Moneyweb, his ex-employer. The spun story he wrote in the Sunday Times was a scathing attack on Moneyweb and was evidently an act of revenge because he had been fired by this firm. The white washed apology the paper carried under Jone’s byline conveniently left out the fact that he had departed from Moneyweb under a cloud. I asked Leshilo, Why is Jones still employed by the Sunday Times and isn’t it particularly hypocritical to keep him on as the paper is in the business of exposing corruption. I referred to an article Leshilo had recently written entitled, Journalists who dirty their hands subtitled A few scoundrels can tarnish the credibility of an entire industry. He went on to say, The big problem though, is the way the media handles their ignoble sons and daughters. Referring to another case he had been dealing with he added, I have never seen such foot-dragging, buck passing and abdication of responsibility on something so damaging to the credibility of a newspaper.  After I had emailed him several times to find out what was happening he assured me, I’m not sweeping the Jim Jones matter under the carpet. But that’s exact what happened because Jones continued to write in the Sunday Times and its sister paper The Times with bigger and bigger bylines.

·       Third Complaint. This was prompted by an SMS from Laurie that appeared in The Times. He maintained that judging by the columns Leshilo had written he was not dealing with any complaints. I then asked him, Isn’t it time that your Group admitted that you are just another columnist and that if readers want to complain you are not the person to contact. He replied that he had been agonizing over this.

         To be continued.

          Yours sincerely

          Jon, a Free Blog advocate. 

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Press Council's brand of Justice - Part II

Dear Newspaper Readers,

          Here’s the second part of my Press Council’s Brand of Justice.

          In August last year I sent the complaints I had raised with the Sunday Times to the Press Council as I was not getting any joy from Leshilo after protracted email conversations over many months.

            Regarding the last one I added that I believed that the Avusa Group should be censured for appointing Leshilo as a window dressing exercise by promoting him as an ombudsman without giving him the authority to do the job properly.

          The Council’s Case Officer, Khanyi Mndaweni, to whom all complaints go initially, immediately dismissed all mine in an email that contained the following: This office does not deal with complaints pertaining to the business side of newspapers. Complaints regarding advertising are dealt with by the Adverting Standards Authority. She added she had spoken to Leshilo who had said he was dealing with my complaint.

          This would no doubt have put off the average person completely. But the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman doesn’t get sidelined that easily. I bypassed the Case Officer and spoke to Dr Johan Retief, the Council’s Deputy Ombudsman.  He told me that what I had been told was not true as they did deal with business sections. 

          Being told a lie to begin with did not give me much faith in this readers’ protection society.         

         I told him that I wondered if the Case Officer had dismissed my complaints out of hand because Thabo Leshilo was a big shot journalist who had recently been speaking on TV about the threat to Press freedom by the African National Congress controlled Government.

          I emphasised that my First Complaint concerned what was written about the adverts and not the ads themselves. I submitted that the headline Taking a stand on unsavoury adverts on the story Leshilo wrote clearly showed that the Avusa Group intended doing something about this kind of advertising.

          At the time I had no reason to keep the article so Dr Retief said he would ask Leshilo to produce it. You can’t believe what happened next.

          Thabo says he has no idea what I am talking about and suggests you produce the article. Stale mate, Dr Retief told me. So this eminent journalist had a sudden attack of amnesia about something I had been complaining to him about on a regular basis since the article appeared about a year earlier.

          I submitted that if this was the case then Dr Retief would have to accept my version unless Leshilo could show that I was wrong. It would seem he doesn’t want to produce the article because it would only fortify my case still further, I told him.

          How odd is this? Two days before I got that dubious email from the Case Officer, Leshilo sent me one saying, I have asked our head of advertising to consider a company-wide position on adverts for such get rich quick schemes. This was evidently what the Case Officer was referring to when she said Leshilo had told her he was dealing with my complaint.

          He was responding to an email I sent him three weeks earlier in which I pointed out that my campaign to get the papers in his group to stop carrying these adverts got a big write up in the beginning and then everything went back to normal. Surely he would have asked me to explain this write up if, as he claimed to Dr Retief, he knew nothing about it?

          Although I did not have the Jim Jones reports that appeared in the Sunday Times I told Dr Retief I had found the Noseweek story which I emailed to him. I also referred him to what Media Online had to say about the first story Jones wrote headed, Questions over Moneyweb price falls.

          Jim Jones, it said, raised a number of issues which appeared to be without substance. In answering Media Online’s questions, Moneyweb’s CEO Alec Hogg said that in almost three decades of his experience in journalism, Jone’s article ranked as ‘the most blatant example of a major media outlet being abused to pursue a writer’s personal agenda.’

          Dr Retief dismissed my complaints by saying he could not adjudicate if he did not have the advertisement article and he could not take my word and then confront Thabo with it. He did not have a copy of the Noseweek report about Jones although I had emailed it to him and in any case I cannot entertain a complaint that is a year late.

          Regarding my query about Leshilo’s role as Avusa’s internal ombudsman he said his office had no mandate to interfere in the goings on of newspapers. We can only act on what newspapers publish.

          Determined to have the last word I pointed out that the Council’s rules allowed for a late submission if there was a good reason for this. My first two complaints were only submitted to the Council after I had spent months unsuccessfully trying to resolve the issues with Leshilo, who kept fobbing me off with things like, I haven’t swept the Jim Jones matter under the carpet.

          I told him I believed he had shown complete bias in favour of the newspaper over the missing adverts story because anybody who had worked in newspapers would realise that a person who wrote a report under his own name would be able to produce it. 

          I concluded by saying that I believed his reason for dismissing my complaint about Leshilo’s ombudsman’s role was not valid  because if a journalist claims IN PRINT to be a newspaper’s ombudsman and then doesn’t fulfill the role as can reasonably be expected surely that’s something the Press Council is empowered to rule on?

          Were my complaints justified and is this the best way to dispense justice? You, the newspaper readers, be the judge.      

          Yours sincerely

          Jon, a Free Blog advocate.

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