NEWSPAPER IMMORALITY A LA CAPE TIMES

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Cape Times News Editor
Lynette Johns

          Was my complaint to the Press Council about being lied to repeatedly the final one that broke Independent Media’s faith in that body’s ability to fairly police its publications?

          As you probably know that’s Iqbal Surve's empire that claims to be the leading newspaper group in the country with titles like the Cape Times, the Cape Argus, The Star in Johannesburg and various others. 

          As a former newspaper investigative journalist living in Cape Town I have a blog to keep me off the streets. So when I got an exclusive I thought the post would make a good story for my local morning daily the Cape Times.

          It was about a doctor (caring doctor) charged by the Health Profession Council with abusing his doctor/patient relationship to enrich himself.

          The Cape Times News Editor, Lynne Johns evidently agreed with me after I sent her an email on 11 July with a link to the post. I told her, “You can take anything off my blog, just credit it. I’m a former Sunday Times investigative journalist so I know a bit about how to do investigations.”

          I followed this with a call the same day to make sure she got the email and I again emphasised that my blog should be credited. This she agreed to, if the story was used.

          In an email she thanked me for giving her the link and said she would pass the story on to one of their reporters.

          After that I got nothing but one broken promise after another.

13 July: The story appeared as the front page lead under the byline of Francesca Villette. I had given her the contact details of the complainant and had sent her affidavits I had received. She too undertook to credit my blog. But nothing appeared and nor was I or my blog mentioned in the brief peace the following day about the hearing being adjourned. There was still room of course for Villette’s email address at the bottom.

14 July: I outlined what had happened in an email to the Editor Aneez Salie. It began, “What has just happened to me is what gives journalists a bad name.” He later claimed he only saw my email on 18 July and he would “meet with those involved tomorrow and revert to you.” This he never did even though he expressed his “sorrow for the inconvenience.”

19 July: When I complaining to Johns on the phoned she said she did not know about any undertaking. Her email response made nonsense of this when she wrote, “Once again thank you for alerting us to the story and sharing your knowledge, we really appreciate it. Unfortunately the subs had to cut the story. This is why the reference to your blog did not make the paper. However, there will be a follow-up and then Francesca will do a sidebar on you, your blog and how you uncovered the story. Please accept my apologies.” I told her it could be months if not years before the case came up again to warrant a follow up story and that it was “ an old tired excuse to blame the subs.”  

20 July: The paper had another chance to put things right, but didn’t. On page four it had a story about how, for the second time in seven months, the Cape Times front page had been chosen among the world’s Top Ten by the Newseum in Washington DC. And as life would have it this was the one with the story I originated splashed across it. The article about this achievement told readers what the story was about but again there was no mention of who had tipped the paper off. In the background at the top of the page was a photograph of President Zuma and Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa unveiling the Delville Wood Memorial in France. The story about this was on the inside pages.

24 July: Fed up with the ongoing deceit I complained to the Press Council.

28 July: The Council’s Public Advocate, Latiefa Mobara replied saying that the “Cape Times is keen to set the record straight.” She included the paper’s response from Damien Terblanche, its Internal Legal Counsel. He began by explaining, for my benefit, how a newspaper works. His reason for my blog not being mentioned in the Newseum’s story was that it was not “the front page lead that got us the accolade, but the page in its entirety, specifically our masthead picture” showing the unveiling of the memorial. How this prevented my contribution being credited in the part that referred to the front page lead or any of the earlier stories only he knows. “We are surprised and disturbed that Abbott has turned to the Press Ombud when we were still in communication with him,” he went on. He repeated the paper’s offer to do a sidebar about me and my blog when the case came up again. “This is surely more than we would do for anyone else. We request that the Ombud refers Abbott back to us.” She did that and I told her I would accept their offer provided I could be assured that the next time the matter came up I would not be told there was again no room for a sidebar. I explained that I had only complained to her because I got no reply to my last email. I asked her to tell the Cape Times “If it makes an agreement it should stick to it.”

3 November: A report on the resumed hearing appeared on Page 4 of the Cape Times by Johns herself this time. There was another one by her the following day after the case was again adjourned. True to form that promised sidebar never materialised and nothing about me or my blog was mentioned.

Johns telling us about how important 'truth' is at the
Cape Times

4 November:  I complained to her again.

6 November: This was a Sunday and her email was as though there had never ever been a problem. “Good morning Jon, how are you,” she began. “I can do a sidebar this morning. I have quite a bit of copy left over from last week. Can I call you? Regards, Lynette.” We had a conversation shortly afterwards and she again promised me that illusive sidebar would appear with her story in the following Tuesday’s edition. Guess what, not only was the sidebar invisible but so was the story as well. 

8 November: My email of disgust to her went unanswered. I told her “It looks as though the Cape Times has been pulling my chain.” It ended, “The obvious heading for my next post would be Newspaper Immorality a la Cape Times.

10 November: The surprising twist to the saga was when I told Latiefa what had happened. She disclosed that as Independent Media, the publishers of the Cape Times, had withdrawn from the Press Council they no longer had any jurisdiction over any of its papers. It appears that with 77 complaints against it to the Press Council this year, including some unfavourable findings, Independent Media decided it would be better off dealing with them itself. Heaven for bid that I should tell a lie, but it’s a possibility that my complaint was the one that finally pushed this Group into resigning. It pulled out allegedly to save legal costs because it felt that the Council should never have abolished the waiver clause. This compelled complainants to agree to relinquish their right to take legal action against media owners if they wanted their complaint heard by the Council. And when I Googled this I saw that Jovial Rantao, a former editor of various papers in the Independent Media Group, had been appointed its internal ombudsman to deal with complaints with “immediate effect” from October 21.  Having dealt with ineffective internal newspaper ombudsmen before I didn’t have much faith in this one. But I thought I would test him with my Cape Times experience. Bad idea.

11 & 15 November: I emailed him, but got no reply.

Rantao

17 November: I tried phoning him at the Group’s Johannesburg head office on the number (011 633 2180) that I had been given for him and the automatic response was that his voice mail had not yet been activated.  On the same day I spoke to Jennifer Johnson in another section of the headquarters and she undertook to get him to contact me. She copied me an email she had sent him asking him to do this. By 24 November I had heard nothing from him.

So that’s a very cost efficient way of getting rid of a complaint with the minimum of effort.

          When he was appointed Rantao was quoted as saying, “Independent Media has always maintained high standards of ethical journalism as guided by the Press Code. My role will be to ensure that our publications continue to adhere to these high standards and that complaints from members of the public are dealt with fairly and efficiently.”

          My experience was a long way from making this Rantao statement a reality.

          Among his many accomplishments he is a former Chairperson of the South African National Editors Forum. Ironically under the heading of “Core Principles” it states “SANEF is founded on high ideals in an industry that, around the world, is often maligned for its lack of integrity.”

          And if you want to know why, you need look no further than the Cape Times.

          Regards

          Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman, who has never been in favour of self policing. Would you value my opinion if I told you that my blog was the best one in the world?

P.S. With the advent of social media information of all kinds gets flashed around the world in an instant, making it more and more difficult for papers to get exclusive news. That’s one of the reasons why so many of them are declining. So it’s very short sighted of papers if they don’t treat people like me in a way that encourages them to keep passing on good stories. In my case at least they got the raw material for their business for free. Most firms would relish this prospect.         

        

PRINT & DIGITAL MEDIA'S APPALLING HYPOCRISY

Dear Consumers,

KARJIEKER

         I promised at the end of my post headed RIDICULOUS ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY (Ridiculous) that I would tell you whether or not the ASA’s close ally the Print & Digital Media SA (PDMSA) is just as ridiculous.

         Well it turns out it is.

         So the ASA is in equally bad company.

         The PDMSA too pretends that it sticks to various impressive principles but when it comes to dealing with one of it own that clearly has a very warped idea of morality, it won’t take any action.

         It claims to represent more than 700 newspaper and magazine titles. Its members groups are Times Media, Caxton & CTP, Independent Newspapers, Media 24, Mail & Guardian – all the big boys in the South African industry – and the Association of Independent Publishers.

         So you would expect it to set a shining example.   

Its website talks about its commitment to promote high standards and integrity, but put to the test this turns out to be hogwash.

After my complaints to the ASA about the unbelievable adverts in The Citizen newspaper (Unbelievable ads) were dismissed out of hand even though the ASA had ruled against similar ads in the past, Leo Grobler, its Manager, Dispute Resolutions, continued the ridiculous trend by suggesting I should contact the PDMSA.

The ASA he said, did not have the power to stop newspapers carrying this sort of ad, but the PDMSA would have some say over the business practices of publications.

The Citizen belongs to the Caxton & CTP Group, so you would think it would abide by what the PDMSA stands for.

In an email to Hoosain Karjieker, the President of the PDMSA I asked if his organisation had the power to take action against its members that do not maintain its standards. I told him I was asking this because a paper that belongs to one of your members carries advertisements offering miraculous remedies and the like that are so outlandish that even the editor of the paper agrees the ads are not believable. But it doesn’t stop the paper carrying lots of them on a daily basis, while on its editorial side under a Code of Conduct heading it tells readers it is ‘committed to report news truthfully in accordance with the highest standards of journalism.’

Karjieker replied that he had given this to the Chief Executive (Ingrid Louw) who has been dealing with a few of these issues of late and would revert back to me. He still passed the buck even further by telling me that there is indeed the Advertising Standards Authority that has a process where complaints of this nature can be laid.

In a subsequent email I told Karjieker I wanted his comments for a post I was writing about my unsuccessful attempt to get the ASA to consider my complaints about The Citizen’s ads. I pointed out that The Citizen was owned by Caxton, which is a member of the PDMSA, and that his association claimed to be committed to promoting highs standards and to internationally recognised good governance practices

I submitted that what The Citizen was doing complied with neither of these ideals.

Ingrid Louw the PDMSA CEO then explained why they would do nothing to stop these ads. She said the PDMSA supported two industry mechanisms to standardise and regulate issues that are editorial in nature. These were the Press Council that has a Press Code that is guided by public interest and deals with reporting, the conduct of journalists and complaints.  The other one was the ASA that dealt with advertising in the print media, amongst others.

The PDMSA and its members subscribe to both codes, she went on.

Then she too joined the ASA’s realm of the ridiculous.

She explained that her organisation had no say over the content of newspapers and magazines as this was covered by the two bodies she had already mentioned.

It is critical, she said, that as media owners we are not seen to be infringing on editorial independence as these decisions on what content to included and or not to include is taken by the editors.

That’s an image that is constantly being perpetuated by newspapers and their owners when there is no question of owners allowing editors a completely free rein. In most cases the owners set the standards by which editors must abide even to the extent of which political party a paper must support.

She wandered further into the ridiculous by telling me, There are also other constitutional considerations that must be taken into account. For example the Constitution provides for freedom of expression which also includes freedom of commercial speech. This could possibly be further explored with the assistance of a constitutional expert.

She added that there were many layers to this discussion and she followed her President in passing the buck once again by suggesting that a discussion be held with the South African Editors Forum who could address it as a strategic industry imperative.

What were clearly unbelievable adverts from people masquerading as doctors, professors and the like had now become a strategic industry matter that nobody in the industry was prepared to make a judgement on.

YOU CAN’T GET MUCH MORE RIDICULOUS THAN THAT.

My email to Louw said, Your reply is the copout that I expected. In my experience most newspaper editors make out that advertising has nothing to do with them. The PDMSA is a joke if it claims to have various high ideals but it won’t get its members to stick to them. What sort of morality is that?

 But that’s what newspapers do. They are a dismal failure at practising what they preach. And when you suggest that carrying dubious ads in a paper should be protected under the Constitution’s provision for freedom of speech you are going into the same dubious area as the ads themselves.

What you have told me is made even more ironic by the fact that your President is also the CEO of the Mail &Guardian, a paper that has made a considerable name for itself for exposing the wrong doings of others.

The PDMSA’s hypocrisy is such that while it refuses to do anything about those ads it continues its proud association with awards that are in keeping with our commitment to promoting high standards and integrity within the print and digital media.

These include the Nat Nakasa Award, presented by the PDMSA, the SA National Editors Forum and the Niemen Society.

The judges look for:

·      Integrity and fearlessness (both characteristics of the Dearjon - letter).

·      Tenaciousness in the face of insurmountable obstacles (another Dearjon - letter attribute).

·      Courage in making information available to the people of South Africa (what the Dearjon - letter is doing when nobody else will).

That’s the Media for you. It has set up these self regulating bodies which it hides behind to give it an air of respectability.

So don’t expect it to do anything about advertisements that con, poor unsophisticated readers, when these are worth a tidy sum to the paper concerned, in this case The Citizen.

Regards,

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

Buy my book "Where have all the children gone"on Amazon.com

  

THE CITIZEN'S ALADDIN'S CAVE OF UNBELIEVABLE ADVERTS

 Dear Newspaper Readers,

        Isn’t it brilliant the way newspapers, those watchdogs of public behaviour have two kinds of morality? In their editorial they will have us believe that they tell the truth and nothing but the truth, whereas they often allow their advertisers to do the opposite, proving once again that money corrupts.

         Take the Johannesburg based The Citizen as an example. On its second page under the heading Code of Conduct it tells us that it has committed itself to report news truthfully and accurately in accordance with the highest standards of journalism as set out in the Press Code of South Africa.

        Then it blows those noble sentiments sky high at the back of the paper with columns of advertisements that are totally unbelievable.

         Its Code of Conduct goes on to tell us that if we don’t like what the paper is up to we can complain to the Press Ombudsman. But very conveniently he doesn’t concern himself with dodgy ads, only editorial.

         Adverts are supposed to be policed by the Advertising Standards Authority. But as I found out this organisation was worse than useless when I tried to get it to do something about very dicey get-rich-quick ads that were appearing in the Sunday Times.

       

  The Citizen has been quite happy to profit from its suspect advertisers and aid an abet them to rip of its gullible readers who are evidently prepared to pay for this pie in the sky.

         The ads are pock marked with names of people calling themselves doctors when they clearly are not. Of course nobody seems concerned that this is illegal.

         Dr Ruben promises With 100% guarantee I return lost love in one hr. Social oil to get any partner you want same day. Manhood enlargement bigger, harder and stronger in one hr. Hire strong short boys and magic sticks to bring money within one hr. Get any job you want and get double salary.

         That’s typical of the mumbo jumbo The Citizen is peddling in its smalls ad sections under a Herbalist heading. In the edition I saw the page of these would have been worth roughly R40 000 to the paper at between R40 and R50 a line.

         There’s Dr Mathu, Dr Love, Dr Jay and Dr Aziz all of whom no doubt got their degrees at the world renowned University of Money Making Magic.

    

     This section of the paper is an Aladdin’s Cave of miracles with 100% guarantees all over the place. And to make this wonderland seem more believable some of them have included T & C's Aplly just like the banks, cell phone companies and other big boys do when they advertise.

         All those millionaires one reads about who toiled for years to accumulate their wealth needn’t have bothered if only they had read The Citizen.

         Here’s a testimony from one of Baba Gonondo’s admirers. Two of my friends decided to visit him in Pretoria. One chose the Short Boys to put money in his bank account and R680 000 was in his account after an hour. The other one chose Rats to put money in his house. He was shocked to see R490 000 in his house in the morning and they paid 10% from the money they got. Everyone I have referred to him they said they have been helped the same day. I would like to thank Baba Gonondo for his help. If you have any problems please don’t hesitate, just call or visit him.

         That ad cost an estimated R5 000.

         Note to readers of this post: If you want Gonondo’s contact details I’m not passing them on for nothing. It will cost you plenty.

         Short Boys and Rats, alien spirits that bring money, feature in quite of few of the ads.

         Ads like these have no place in any self respecting newspaper. What really should have happened is that these advertisers should have been exposed for what they are in the editorial section of a paper. But The Citizen has evidently not been prepared to bite the hand that feeds it and opposition papers have not expose this, possibly because many of them are doing much the same thing.

STEVE MOTALE is not to blame for the adverts.
They were there when he arrived at the paper

          I tossed this hot potato to The Citizen's recently appointed

 Editor Steven Motale. Sorry Steve for giving you this one when you’ve hardly settled in to the hot seat.

         He is to be commended for phoning me, unlike several Editors of the Sunday Times.  I never got a peep out of them in my three year campaign to get that paper to stop running highly suspect investment ads.

         "I think you've got a point" Steven told me. He conceded these were, "not believable" and suggested that his paper should still carry them but give readers a "caution"

         But when I told him that 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."

        

So we’ll see what happens. R40 000 or more a day it not to be discarded lightly.

Will money override acceptable morality once again?

         The Citizen is a national, daily tabloid with a circulation of around 70 000. It was founded in 1976 by the National Party apartheid government using money from a secret government slush fund as it desperately needed the support of an English speaking paper. The White Afrikaner dominated Nats were replaced in 1994 by a Black African National Congress government.

         In 1998 the paper was bought by the CTP/Caxton group, publisher of magazines and newspapers as well being the country’s largest commercial printer.

Its core readership is black middle class men many of whom evidently believe that black magic as advertised by the this paper works.

Regards,

Jon the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman who is not to be confused with that far less effective Press Ombudsman referred to in The Citizen’s Code of Conduct. He comes under the South African Press Council set up by the media. It believes that "Effective self-regulation is the best system for promoting high standards in the media."
How can policing yourself possibly be the best way to go? And when it comes to newspapers its other great flaw is that it has no say over the standard of advertising that takes up a great proportion of most papers. 

See: ridiculous advertising police; print digital medias' hypocrisy; caxton's bosses duck dubious advertising; editors questionable ethics

New Age's Moegsien Williams & a Question of Morality

Dear South African Newspaper Readers,

         I want to share this with you although it concerns a question of morality I would love Moegsien Williams to answer.

         Last year Williams became the 4th editor of the fledgling and controversial, two year old New Age national, daily newspaper.  It is owned by the Gupta family which has been accused of benefiting substantially from their links with President Jacob Zuma and the ANC Government.

         It is keeping its circulation figures secret so it evidently has nothing to brag about and needs all the help it can get.

         It claims to focus on the positive side of news and to only make constructive criticism of our leaders. Could this be the definition of a government lap dog?  

         Ryland Fisher, the New Age editor who resigned after just 17 months to be replaced by Williams, said this of him: He is a respected name in South African journalism and it says something about the New Age that they can attract a person of his calibre.

         He certainly has a long and distinguished career on papers that would have been more likely to attack the South African government than to praise it. He has been the Editor in Chief of The Star, the flagship of the Independent Newspaper Group, and he was also in the hot seat at the Cape Argus, the Cape Times and the Pretoria News. His other achievements include being Chairman of the International Press Institute and Vice Chairman of the South African Editor’s Forum.

         With that kind of background it is hardly surprising that he was a member of the Press Council’s task team that last year compiled a 98 page report ostensible to improve South African journalism.

         But its real purposed appeared to be to tweak the existing Press Council’s mechanism so that the newspaper industry could go on policing itself in the face of mounting pressure from the Government to replace it with a statutory, media appeals tribunal.

         Not having read the report I can only assume that one of its aims was to also try and maintain the utmost integrity among journalists.

         So in view of Williams’ vast experience of newspapers and being an adviser to the Press Council, the question I want to ask him is this: If a freelance journalist submits a story to a paper he is editing, does he think it's morally right to print it under the byline of a member of his own staff?

         A couple of years ago The Star, which Williams was editing at the time, carried splash after splash about the horrific deeds of orthopaedic surgeon Dr Wynne Lieberthal. It was a huge story that I knew something about.

         I was a journalist, turned private business investigator, who looked into the doctor’s nefarious activities long before the stories about him broke in the media. My inquiries related to a life insurance scam so I had thoroughly researched the doctor.

         And having once worked for The Star as a reporter I gave it a report about Lieberthal, which was a development the paper had not yet cover.

        The story was used quite big but not with my byline on it. It was credited to a Star reporter who had done a lot of the previous reports on Lieberthal.

         My name was not mentioned anywhere as the author.

         I protested to the News Editor and other high up members of the staff to no avail. Eventually I emailed Williams complaining that his paper had ‘hijacked my story.’

         I got no reply from him. A senior editor merely assured me that I would still get paid for my efforts, but no apology of any kind was forthcoming.

         It would be nice if Mr Williams would now tell us all if this is the kind of morality he will be following at the New Age and whether he will continue his publication’s stated policy of only recording the positive side of life and only publishing constructive criticism of our leaders?

         Regards,

         Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman

Note: I emailed this to Williams before I posted it and invited him to make any comments he wished. But as was the case when his paper hijacked my story I got no reply. It seems when journalists are in a corner they are as likely to remain silent as anybody else.

Press Council's odd judgments & Steve Mulholland

Dear Steve Mulholland,

         Sorry to see that my Big Brother the South African Press Council has given you a right old bashing about what you wrote in your Sunday Times column, This is the business.

         As you know your paper reported that the Deputy Press Ombudsman Dr Johan Retief ruled that your Johannesburg based paper had to apologise for what you wrote about the Director General of the Department of Public Enterprise Tshediso Matona.

Retief

         Retief slammed your column as misleading, unreasonable, negligent, unjustifiable and unfair text. Gosh that’s telling you.

         As a former newspaper top dog it must have come as shock to be told off in such a fashion. But then you used pretty strong language in your column so you shouldn’t have been surprised if it boomeranged back when you got your facts completely wrong.

         You described our South African Government as a vast criminal enterprise conducted by a mafia run, in turn, by dons and their consiglieri.



Faceless Council

        Nothing wrong with that I would say. Everybody knows that’s too true for comfort.

         It seems the mistake you made was accusing Matona of corruption and other wrong doings which you did not substantiate.

         I thought the Press Council had gone into hibernation after there was Government talk a little while back of stopping the Media being policed by itself, something which has been long overdue.

         Nothing came of that, but judging by your case the Council is making a point of giving high profile Government complainants the very best treatment.

         It seems you were unlucky because in my limited experience the Press Council only takes a stand if the complainant is somebody it can’t ignore. You know some sort of big shot or other especially somebody in a Government that is breathing down its neck.

         In my case being an ex-Sunday Times investigative journo and currently the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman was not enough of a status symbol to warrant serious consideration of my complaints, which were dismissed without even an appeal being allowed.



Faceless Council

         In fact being the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman probably disqualified any of my complaints from the start. I’m sure the Press Council hasn’t taken kindly to this upstart trying to usurp its extremely important role of keeping newspapers in line.

         In the Press Council’s eyes it was perfectly in order for a journalist, who had been exposed in Noseweek as a crook, to go on being employed by the Business section of the Sunday Times (see Press Council’s Brand of Justice – Parts I & II -22/2/2011; Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman in Disappearing Mystery 8/3/2011) that you now write for.

         And it was also in order as far as the Press Council was concerned for the paper to rat on an undertaking to do something about get-rich-quick advertisements that the paper was carrying.

SO TRUE

Subsequently some of the advertisers had their crooked ways exposed on Carte Blanche and in Noseweek (see Noseweek exposes Dearjon Letter ), but not before they had made millions with the help of those Sunday Times ads that I tried, for more than two years, to stop.

The Press Council’s website lists 14 members of the Council with pictures of only six of them. The rest are faceless including Mondli Makhanya the former Editor in Chief of the Sunday Times whose picture appears every week beside the column he writes in that paper.

Faceless Council

So what are most of them so bashful about? Are they scared of getting a brick through their window or something?

I also see that Joe Thloloe, who was the Ombudsman from 2007 was given an even fancier title when he became the Director in the Press Council in January this year and Johan Retief, who, as his deputy, seems to have been dealing with most of the case work is now the Ombudsman.

Steve it’s just as well there is no Blog Council otherwise I could be defending myself there every week. But with the present ANC Government who knows there could be a statutory, Complaints Council for Blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

I hope this one bad experience won’t put you off knocking everything that is bad about our Government. Let’s face it that could be the longest column ever written.

Shy Jon

Regards,

Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman