The Mail & Guardian offices are a mess. In the newspaper’s third home in 20 years, journalists and ad sales people work between loosely draped electrical wires and stacks of boxes. Three cartoon figures, one a Fred Flintstone, wander awkwardly and morosely about looking for a journalist that cannot be found. A woman selling snacks sits on a reception couch with her goods neatly arrayed on a coffee table. Matthew Krouse, the arts editor, glumly walks through the offices clutching a polystyrene cup of coffee. “I can’t bear change,” he says.
Editor Ferial Haffejee is bright and breezy amid the chaos. In public talks she will sometimes make a dutiful daughter comment about her mother; in the speaker notes for a recent conference she mentioned she likes eating with her family and therefore needs to go to the gym regularly. They are coy, almost girly comments that belie a woman who is anything but.
The fifth editor of the Mail & Guardian and its first woman editor carries the tradition of a newspaper that was born into penury yet remained rich in the dreams of those who wrote for it, and those who read it. She is steadily pushing up circulation, with the latest ABCs (Jul – Dec 2004) at 40,162, up from 37 072 for the corresponding period the year before. It’s the highest the paper’s been in a while.
Although the M&G‘s early editors were the somewhat affected Anton Harber and the brilliant but self-effacing Irwin Manoim, the publication was street smart and defiant. If you had to picture the Weekly Mail of the ’80s and ’90s as a man, he would have stood with thumbs hooked into jean pockets, a fag dangling from his lips, unshaven since heck knows when and eyes bleary from no sleep: either too much work or too much carousing, probably both – all of which would have disguised a caustic tongue, a razor sharp mind, a defiant spirit and a wicked sense of humour.
Today, the paper feels middle-aged, predictable. Yes, its corruption stories get up the noses of the privileged/stealing classes, but provocation doesn’t always excite or challenge. Even the Body Language column’s obsession with nipples and penises, piercings and the odd “fuck” is like a school mistress dressed as a dominatrix – not really surprising.
The once fabulous Friday arts section, filled with some of the best writing on the arts, theatre and literature, is now little more than a wrap-around listing of the week’s TV shows. Television! Time was the typical M&G reader would deny ever watching it, but for the news. Haffejee promises that a good arts section is “top of my list of priorities.”
She reflects that “the paper has grown up with its readers, but it’s not as funky as it should be. Today’s reader is younger, blacker, hipper and wealthier than in ’85.” Haffajee says that “politics and investigations will always form the core of the paper,” but when it is put to her that the paper appears to have lost its passionate curiosity about people and their lives, she responds, “over the long term I want to bring back the double-page feature with people stories, but there is still a thing among some journalists that the only sexy story is a corruption story.”
It’s a belief that ignores journalistic wisdom that people are interested in other people. Reporting on corruption is important to democracy, but it’s difficult to make it riveting week in and week out.
Harber, writing about this year’s 20th anniversary of the Mail & Guardian, noted when the paper began “we had to redefine news: it wasn’t the boring and predictable stuff happening in parliament, or the internal shenanigans of the ruling party — it was what was happening in the township streets and factory floors. And we had to cover in a different way.”
Which is what the tabloid media is doing today, and in the process growing the newspaper reading market. Phalane Motale, editor of the Sunday Sun, says, “readers are interested in people they see as being successful and the reader can say; ‘they are like me, they have lost a house or a car.’ The paper is being read by LSM 6 and 8 readers and is growing so fast that early this year Media24 allowed me to employ 10 more senior journalists.”
Motale says circulation is presently above 190,000 (ABCs Jul-Dec 2004 were at 173,738) and is aiming for 250,000 within the next year. “People are not interested in politics, gone are the days when the Inkatha Freedom Party had nearly every Zulu behind them. There was a time when the African National Congress would call a rally and people would come in buses [but] in the last election the president had to go to people’s homes.”
The popularity of the tabloid is a reaction to journalists pontificating using press releases, the internet and the telephone as their sources – a consequence of accountants at the big media houses who refuse to pay for journalists to travel as far as Soweto from the Johannesburg CBD.
The further journalism is from the life experience of ordinary citizens, the less it is believed.
Richard A. Posner, a judge of the United States Court of Appeals, wrote in July that, “the conventional news media are embattled, their credibility with the public in shreds. In a recent poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 65 percent of respondents thought that most news organisations try to ignore or cover up mistakes, and 79 percent opined that a media company would hesitate to carry negative stories about a corporation from which it received substantial advertising revenues.”
Today, a sceptical public cheers curbs to press freedom.
The M&G faces a crucial test case in the Imvume issue. In May, Judge Vas Soni interdicted the paper from running a follow-up to a report that oil company Imvume paid R11-million of taxpayer’s money to the African National Congress and made loans to relatives of two cabinet ministers. What M&G is being sued for now – following Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s controversial finding that Imvume had done no wrong – is to reveal who gave them bank account details.
Soni found that journalists “should not publish from a tainted source. It will allow journalists to taint society as a whole.” From a judge who was a journalist, and before that prosecutor for the state in the Jali Commission, where the most important sources were criminals, his comment is somewhat surprising.
The New York Times famously has reporter Judith Miller in jail at present for refusing to reveal her source. The newspaper editorialised in July: “It doesn’t matter whether we think a source is a good person or has good motivations. A reporter promises confidentiality, and the paper backs the journalist because otherwise the public will not learn what it needs to know— reporters cannot apply ideology when protecting their sources, any more than civil liberties lawyers can defend the First Amendment rights of only the people they agree with.”
Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc., said in July that his decision to obey the courts and give a reporter’s notes to a US special prosecutor – in the same case that saw Miller opt for jail – had resulted in several valuable confidential sources refusing to cooperate with Time magazine.
Motale says his paper also frequently receives lawyers letter, but “we haven’t paid a cent after four years in existence, we do not publish that which we cannot prove.” The Sunday Sun too won’t reveal sources.
The Imvume story, Haffajee says, “was ready to be published last year but I wanted proof—Principles are always going to be tested by scoundrels – Miller has gone to jail to protect Karl Rove, who is a scoundrel.” In a speech to the University of KwaZulu-Natal in February 2004, she said that lawsuits at that stage were up to R23-million. She would not give the present tally. M&G publisher Trevor Ncube said “it’s millions.”
Haffajee and her team couldn’t do what they do without Ncube’s backing. A Zimbabwean with a profound belief in God, a journalistic background and owner of two newspapers in Zimbabwe, Ncube says: “nothing good comes without risk.”
So is it easier to operate in South Africa or Zimbabwe? “South Africans are very sensitive, as shown by their response to Oilgate [Imvume]. There is a pretense that people love democracy and freedom of the press but deep down people resent freedom of the press. It is a lie that the press operates freer here than in Zimbabwe.”
When Ncube took over the M&G was losing R12-million a year. Last year the newspaper recorded its first operating profit. One of Ncube’s first tasks was to reduce journalistic hostility to advertising. “Advertising and profit are not four-letter words, if we pride editorial independence we need a solid financial position. We are not an NGO, we are a business, we need to watch the bottom line and fight the good fight.
“When I came to the M&G it had litigation every week, we have brought that down quite significantly. We will fight unashamedly to protect press freedom. At the moment there is Oilgate, the ANC is suing us [tied to the Imvume saga] and so is Mangosuthu Buthelezi.”
Says Haffajee: “I think the biggest threat to press freedom is that the media is not sufficiently introspective – reporters are underskilled, they aren’t always ethical or fair.” A young journalist starting at the M&G will earn R12,000 to R20,000 a month, and after five to 10 years will pull in up to R30,000 a month. “But the PR industry is poaching them,” Haffajee says, “a young black PR starts at around R30 000—”
Also, a serious investigation can take weeks or months of unglamorous plodding and checking, and doesn’t carry the dizzy cheekiness of the yellow press. The most spectacular growth among weekly newspapers is Son. As The Media wrote in July: “At almost 199,959 audited copies sold (ABC Jul-Dec 2004), Son‘s growth against the previous year—is the largest of any South African newspaper.”
Haffeejee says, “I’m not of the school that says tabloids are bad for journalism. Son is tapping into what is happening in this country, they know their readers intimately—If you look at the Daily Sun, behind the zombies and tokoloshes there is some fine watchdog journalism. The Daily Sun has an advice office in its lobby – it’s become the Black Sash of journalism.”
Haffajee is right, press freedom is at risk less from the corrupt – whether morally, politically or financially – than from kneejerk reactions in publishing boardrooms. There is little sense that the public wants better crafted stories, and not more sensation – which contributes to contempt for the media.
Advocate Gilbert Marcus, who specialises in media issues, says: “There is greater freedom of expression than there ever has been in terms of the law and the constitution, [but]—there is a lack of robust debate in this country as a whole. Issues are more complex, under apartheid issues were stark. I am not sure that the complexities are being exploited [by journalists].”
The greatest challenge facing journalists is to be sensitive to agendas, and to refuse to play the games of the powerful. There is no truth, there are merely greater and lesser lies.
Charlene Smith is a multi-award winning journalist working across the media spectrum in print, radio, television documentaries and the internet for media within South Africa as well as those in European countries and the USA. A media trainer, she has also authored six books.
Out of Context
We were somewhat taken aback by some of the comments Charlene Smith made in her article “Tensions of the Week”
Whilst we respect the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and interpretations – as this is a fundamental part of our own ethos – we thought we should at least set the record straight on some of the issues she so unfairly raises.
We are currently celebrating 20 years of the existence of a historically struggling newspaper, and for the first time in its history it is beginning to enjoy the benefits of positive cash flows and enhanced brand value.
The writer’s visit to our offices happened to coincide with our move from the uncomfortable environment we previously occupied in Auckland Park to brighter, newer, and more cost effective accommodation in Rosebank. References to “mess” at the new offices and the general tone in the article about a disorganised company serves little purpose, if any, in describing the true state of affairs at the Mail & Guardian 20 years on.
The fact of the matter is that the company is poised to become a formidable player in the industry, driven mainly by the passion of the people who now run the organisation. We have worked hard to develop our staff, both journalists and others, to become the best in their fields. Our “Oilgate” exposé can hardly be described as “middle-aged and predictable”, and neither can the debates sparked by Professor Makgoba’s “White male” articles be described as “not really surprising”.
We have marketed ourselves on the strengths of our fiercely independent editorial, with much success, and this can be borne out by the fact that revenues have in fact quadrupled over the past three years.
We will acknowledge to some extent that our Arts section has not lived up to expectations, and clearly, as indicated by our editor, this section is currently being revamped. But it is natural for any organisation that requires turnaround to have parts of the product tampered with in order to transform it into a workable business model that does not place undue strain on other parts of the business. “Friday” has suffered in this regard, but a new revamped section is due to be launched shortly.
What we have today is a company that is being run on sound business principles and practices that will ensure its viability for many years to come.
Difficult as it may be for an independent title to survive in this tightly held industry, we will endeavour to take ownership of more activities that will generate better margins both in South Africa and beyond.
We will achieve this objective by remaining the home of uncompromising editorial and robust debate, and will continue to produce some of the finest journalists this county will ever see.
Trevor Ncube
Chief Executive