Howard Barrell
The row over the Financial Mail’s endorsement last week of the United Democratic Movement in the forthcoming election has brought into sharp relief the relationship between editorial independence and media ownership in South Africa.
This week’s Financial Mail carries a lengthy rebuttal of the endorsement by one of the publication’s co-owners, former African National Congress leader-turned- businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, Johnnic chair. The National Empowerment Consortium, comprising various trade union and black business groups including Johnnic, owns 50% of BDFM Publications, of which the Financial Mail forms part.
Ramaphosa alleges that, in endorsing the UDM, the editor of the Financial Mail, Peter Bruce, has “commandeered” the magazine to push his own personal political views, which are by no means consistent with those of most of his staff or the Financial Mail’s owners.
Ramaphosa suggests the Financial Mail should not have endorsed any party in the run-up to the elections on June 2. “The call for a vote for a specific political party seriously compromises the editorial independence and credibility of the Financial Mail. The editor’s more than enthusiastic endorsement tarnishes the record of independence, fairness and unbiased coverage that the Financial Mail should stand for,” Ramaphosa writes in the Financial Mail.
In Thursday’s Business Day, the other member of the BDFM stable, an editorial by its editor, Jim Jones, says that Ramaphosa’s attack on the endorsement of the UDM, has “compromised” the editorial independence and integrity of his own paper and of the Financial Mail, though “not intentionally”. It is not known whether or not Business Day intends endorsing a particular party and what the public interpretation of any such endorsement would be in the light of Ramaphosa’s attack.
Pearsons, the British media conglomerate that owns the other half of the Financial Mail’s parent company, BDFM Publications, is understood to have given its full backing to Bruce. Pearsons, which also owns the Financial Times of London and The Economist magazine, has a tradition of insisting on complete editorial independence for its editors. Bruce, a South African, was a senior member of the Financial Times’s editorial staff and subsequently editor of the South African Independent Group’s Business Report supplement before becoming editor of the Financial Mail.
Publicly, Pearsons MD David Bell said on Wednesday that publications owned by his group were willing in principle to open their columns to those objecting to their reportage or editorial opinions. Bell’s statement did not, however, deal with the additional fact that Ramaphosa, by virtue of his chairmanship of Johnnic, controls a sizeable stake in the Financial Mail through its parent company, BDFM Publications.
Senior Financial Mail staff are understood also to be supporting Bruce, despite there being a wide diversity of political allegiances on the publication.
“Ramaphosa has responded as a politician, not as an owner of the Financial Mail.
His objections to our endorsement of the UDM are disingenuous. Would he, or the ANC, have objected to the Financial Mail’s endorsement of a political party per se if the Financial Mail had chosen to support the ANC. We doubt it,” a staff member, who preferred to remain anonymous, said on Thursday.
“We are all enjoying the debate that this has thrown up about the relationship between media owners and editorial independence. Of course, there needs to be transformation in the media, and that must include media ownership. But the effect of Ramaphosa’s article could be to cast doubt on the integrity of articles appearing in our magazine in future. People may ask: `Is that piece in because Cyril approves of it?’ We will have to ensure no such view takes root,” the senior Financial Mail staffer said.