Rehana Rossouw
MARTIN WELZ, editor of noseWEEK, is one of a kind. His one-man-band magazine is the only investigative journal in the country, despite the fact that it is run from his home.
This is the first time noseWEEK has been taken to court, despite the publication’s record of exposing information many would prefer remained hidden. But Welz knows full well what the crippling financial consequences of litigation can be.
A forerunner to noseWEEK, called nose, which he established in 1985 as a hobby while still employed as a journalist on Rapport, was sued for criminal litigation by the former Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange. The magazine had published an article about a law firm in which Le Grange had been a business partner, claiming he had put pressure on the Receiver of Revenue to get out of a tax debt.
“The case went on for about a year, and just as we were about to force the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to produce information, the state withdrew the charges. But the legal costs were so enormous that it closed us down,” said Welz.
This time, he has the backing of the Media Defence Trust, which is covering about 20% of his legal cost. The trust’s spokesman, David Dison, said they were involved because the case involved the media’s continuing contest in the courts for the right to publish information the media believes the public needs to know.
Welz said in his defence of the lawsuit that South African media should enjoy the right to comment and report on public figures, in the same way as the media in the United States does.
Welz has won several awards for his meticulous reporting and has often been celebrated by his peers and industry. He has been awarded South Africa’s major journalism prizes, the latest being the 1994/5 South African Union of Journalists prestigous Pringle Award for Press Freedom and Excellence in Journalism.
Long before any other reporter, he uncovered a substantial part of the Information Scandal where journalists uncovered the fact that the government had provided funding to launch the Citizen newspaper as part of its propaganda campaign. At the time, his editors refused to publish the information he had unearthed.
A qualified lawyer, Welz launched noseWEEK in 1993. The magazine’s aim is to promote a more critical and innovative approach to journalism. It deals mainly with issues of public accountability and social responsibility, not only in government but also in business and the professions.
Welz was sharply critical of an Appeal Court judgement in 1993 against the Mail & Guardian and the now defunct Vrye Weekblad which were sued for defamation by the former head of the Police Forensic Laboratory, General Lothar Neethling, who had been identified in an interview with hitsquad policeman Captain Dirk Coetzee as the supplier of poison to murder apartheid opponents.
The court held that the South African public had “no legitimate interest in being informed of such allegations” and that the press had no right to publish them.
noseWEEK published several articles criticising that judgement and the court’s traditionally hostile view of the press. Issues surroundinmg that case are likely to be raised by the defence in the current noseWEEK case.
Earlier this year in a defamation case brought by deputy minister Bantu Holomisa against the Star, Judge Edwin Cameron made a landmark ruling when he said the test lay in whether the journalist had conducted himself reasonably in constructing a report in connection with public accountability.