Three days after management of Natal Newspapers paid for some Ilanga staff and their families to stay at hotels because of "vigilante" threats, the company has announced the sale of the newspaper to Inkatha.
Making the formal announcement yesterday, Natal Newspapers MD Ed Booth said no alternative arrangements would be made for reporters on Ilanga who did not wish to carry on working for the paper under its new owners. "If they do not like it they can resign," he said.
The bi-weekly Ilanga, the largest vernacular paper in the country, will now be owned by a newly-formed company called Mandla-Matla with Inkatha directors, including Inkatha secretary general, Dr Oscar Dhlomo, as managing director.
Dhlomo said the question of editorship had not yet been settled. He denied Inkatha intended to run a "party political rag" and said stories critical of Inkatha could still be run in Ilanga under its new owners. He said Inkatha had been looking around for a long time for a newspaper and had the option of crippling Ilanga by producing a rival, or buying it out.
Booth said his company was motivated by business considerations; they were happy to sell to a company under which the paper would improve and gain readers. Natal Newspapers will continue "servicing" Ilanga, providing printing and distribution and other assistance under contract. Booth said the paper had "always had close links with Inkatha" and there would be no difference to the paper now that it had been taken over.
Ilanga journalists, who were officially informed yesterday morning about the deal signed at 9am, said they were "very bitter'. Father of the Ilanga chapel of the SA Society of Journalists, Mdu Lembede, said many of the roughly 20 editorial staff wanted to be accommodated by one of the Argus sister papers, rather than work for an Inkatha-owned Ilanga.
They say this because they do not want to work for my paper with party political affiliations — left or right," Lembede said. "They feel it will completely undermine their professional objectivity. Apart from ethical considerations, there are many who fear for their lives under the new system "
An Ilanga staffer at the news conference where the announcement was made told Booth: "We on the staff stay in the townships and now we are going to be seen to be aligned to one political organisation, How are we going to cope with this? Our lives are at stake." Booth: "They can resign."
According to July-December 1986 figures, Ilanga has a circulation of well over 105 000 (down six percent on previous six months), but its readership statistics of well over 1,2-million make it the third most widely read paper in the country. At the end of 1985, there was a brief strike by reporters at the paper. Reports quoted dissatisfied journalists as saying they were on strike over the paper's "pro-Inkatha bias". After the issue was settled the staff issued a statement denying the strike was politically motivated.
Ilanga was founded in 1903 by John Dube who collected cattle from kraal heads and money from "working Zulus" to start the paper. In 1976 Inkatha helped bring out The Nation, but it was wracked with problems and "closed indefinitely" in June 1980.