There were stories to remember and some that editors just wanted to forget. Jacquie Golding-Duffy reports on the highs and lows in the media industry
This was certainly an eventful year for the print media, with several editors admitting to a series of high notes as well as major booboos.
While some editors had inaccurate front page stories they would rather forget, many said they experienced a learning curve and were surprisingly highly critical of the media’s behaviour.
The Sowetan’s editor, Mike Siluma, says the media has to ‘seriously examine its role’ as the many problems it has encountered with the government and politicians stemmed from a ‘lack of clarity on the function of the media in our new dispensation’.
Siluma says the years’ news highlights were definitely the Bantu Holomisa saga followed by the Sarafina II debacle. Both these stories, he says, struck at the heart. Why? ‘Because they showed us what kind of society we want or don’t want to live in.
‘With Holomisa it exposed our electorate system and raised several ethical questions on the ways in which we fund our political parties in our electoral system. Also, it showed that other African National Congress and Cabinet members have to be very careful following Holomisa’s expulsion.’
With regards to Sarafina II, Siluma says the story raised the issue of politicians’ accountability to the general public.
On the Sowetan’s biggest grovel, Siluma admitted that the newspaper’s front page lead article accompanied by photographs of the country’s spies included an innocent victim ‘ Paula Volschenk, a sports dietician and business woman and not a spy at all.
‘Her picture was included by pure accident alongside that of spies like Craig Williamson. We had to then apologise,’ he said.
City Press editor Khulu Sibiya agrees with Siluma that the biggest story of the year was Holomisa’s tussle with ANC executives.
‘Holomisa ruffled the feathers of the untouchables and was the first to challenge the hierarchy of the ANC and that of the president himself. One could not ignore him [Holomisa] at every stage of his briefing to the media.’
Sibiya argues that Holomisa’s claims at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Minister of Public Enterprises Stella Sigcau received bribe money in the former Transkei homeland, ‘revealed a lot … especially that the ANC is not as democratic as they claim and that they prefer that certain things are not mentioned’.
City Press’s biggest booboo involved apologising to 15 academics.
‘We ran a story about fake degrees at the University of Zululand, stating that the list of names we published was linked to the person responsible for the illegitimate degrees. However, it never happened and the 15 people listed did in fact have authentic degrees or were not at all involved.’
Business Day editor Jim Jones says the biggest story for him was the Pearsons deal. ‘The deal expresses a confidence in the country and Times Media publications.
‘That aside, Holomisa and Sarafina II were essentially the two biggest stories which illustrate how the ANC is coming to grips with the realities of running a country.’
Booboo of the year for Business Day was a front page article stating that Telkom chairman Dikgang Moseneke was going to resign when in fact he had no such plans, causing many red faces at the daily.
For the editor of The Star, Peter Sullivan, the best story of the year was the Eugene De Kock trial. Also, Holomisa, serial killer Moses Sithole , South Africa winning the African Cup of Nations, former Springbok Rugby captain Francois Pienaar being axed and Mandela announcing that he won’t be up for re-election.
The Star’s mistake was reporting that Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo would be leaving parliament as Mandela was reshuffling his cabinet. However, this was not true.
According to Sullivan, another blunder was losing the court case against Caxton, which won an Appellate Division ruling forcing Independent Newspapers to shut down all their regional supplements.
Cape Times editor Moegsien Williams says People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) was the story for 1996. ‘Apart from the fact that it is a Western Cape story, it is one of a series of new South African stories which is indicative of the change in society causing all kinds of contradictions to emerge.’
Williams says the newspaper’s biggest blunder was calling Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie Madikizela-Matanzima. The blunder was highlighted on a late night television show, he said.
Williams argues that his general complaint about the press is our failure in telling the unfolding South African story and contextualising it.
‘We are very good at covering events as they happen and doing the follow-ups, but we fail to fully explain the implications of certain decisions taken in parliament. What do these decisions mean to the ordinary Mr and Mrs Witbooi in Beaufort West?’
Sunday Times editor Brian Pottinger found the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the overall story of the year as it ‘forced all of us to confront our past’.
Also, the final settlement of the constitution, the pressures on the rand/’state of the economy and the question of the government’s macro-economic plan were all good stories for1996.
‘Politically it was a year of the ANC settling into power with the Holomisa, Winnie Mandela and Patrick Lekota incidents. The story of Sithole, an alleged serial killer, was also a big story although it was underplayed. Also on a human level was the story of Micaela Hunter and her return to her family.’
Pottinger admitted that the Sunday Times’s biggest grovel was to Pienaar as they ‘unfairly implicated him in a raucous golfing incident’, making out he behaved in a ‘boorish’ manner. ‘We did repeatedly apologise to him.’
He adds: ‘Another of our booboos was to trust Ian Woodall to have sufficient leadership skills to take a South African team to the top of Mount Everest. It was a great story but it did not happen the way we planned.’
On what the media did wrong this year, Pottinger says that we still do not place enough emphasis on the training of reporters in an effort to ensure that ‘we do not make silly, avoidable and sometimes damaging mistakes’.
Beeld editor Johan de Wet agrees with Pottinger that Micaela Hunter was a big story as it was Beeld’s reporters who captured an exclusive.
He could not think of any serious damage that Beeld has inflicted. ‘But in terms of general booboos of the year, it must go to Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma who tried to convince us that Sarafina II was funded by foreign aid.’
The Mail &Guardian’s highlight was the Hezekiel Sepeng scoop when the 800m Olympic silver medallist was asked to cheat.
M&G’s blunder was when it announced the death of left-wing publisher Ravan Press ‘and paid tribute to its achievements’ only to discover reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated.
@Media Mad
Jacquie Golding-Duffy
Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee sees himself as action hero Steven Seagal
Which television programmes do you watch most often and why?
Any and all sport. It depends where the sport is being broadcast. Either I watch on M-Net or SABC and sometimes I watch both channels, flipping with my remote control from one channel to the next. I enjoy watching rugby, boxing and soccer in particular.
Which book have you recently read that you would recommend?
I’m a very bad reader and have never, believe it or not, read a book.
Which radio stations do you listen to and why?
Radio Jacaranda mostly because of the great variety of music. The rest of the time it depends who is in the car with me. When it’s my one son, we listen to Radio Tuks. When the other son is in the car, we switch to FM Stereo and when my wife’s in the car, we listen to cassettes.
Do you surf the World Wide Web of the Internet?
No ‘ I don’t even own a computer.
Which is your favourite advertisement and why?
M-Net’s ‘We won’t stop the magic at all’. It’s brilliant with all the animals singing.
Which newspapers and magazines do you regularly read?
I receive Beeld every morning. I also read the Sowetan, Mail & Guardian, City Press, Sunday Times and Sunday Independent, among others…
If you could be any film star or fictional character, who would you be and why?
Definitely Steven Seagal because I hate losing and I believe if you do your job you have to do it properly. Seagal does his job well and that is why I enjoy his movies. He always wins and I can appreciate his drive towards perfectionalism (sic). I hated Rocky I and Rocky II … Sylvester Stallone is not my type of hero.