Management meddling was behind e.tv’s attack on the M&G, writes Drew Forrest
‘Excellence in journalism is the best protection for media freedom,” e.tv’s channel director Quraysh Patel told the Human Rights Commission (HRC) last year. Fine-sounding words but entirely hollow, given the channel’s crude attempt to knife the Mail & Guardian last week.
Paradoxically, the insert on e.tv’s evening news lent credence to M&G staff fears about how the wrong black empowerment partner might undermine the independence of the paper. The news item which tried to show that white M&G journalists oppose any black business involvement, and that the staff is racially split on the issue was a barefaced subversion of editorial independence at e.tv.
The saga is more than a petty spat between two media. It goes to the heart of what journalism and black empowerment are about. E.tv won its licence on a broad-based black empowerment pitch.
Why did the item appear when it did? It revolved around a staff letter to the M&G’s owner, the Guardian, voicing gentle concern about overtures to particular black empowerment companies. But the letter was hardly breaking news it was sent three months ago. Our own Krisjan Lemmer commented on it at the time.
The real trigger was an M&G article two weeks ago about labour relations at e.tv. Approached for comment a journalistic courtesy e.tv CEO Marcel Golding became abusive. He later warned the M&G’s editor that if the paper dared to publish, “I’ll get you!” And it seems he tried to. Insiders say the script, by respected reporter Kalay Maistry, was rewritten by communications director Kanthan Pillay. By all accounts, Maistry was distraught.
Golding’s agenda, imposed on the facts, are clear for all to see. Two senior black M&G journalists are quoted on camera as saying there have never been racial divisions at the paper and that editorial independence is the key concern of all staff. The “news item” ignores this, using unnamed staff sources to support its baseless racial calumny.
The fact is that the letter to the Guardian was signed by 10 black staff members including all black reporters and 13 whites. Staff have never been opposed to black ownership as such their fears revolved around approaches to two individuals in the bosom of the ruling party, the president’s brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, and New Africa Investment Limited’s Saki Macozoma.
The cynical use of race as a smear tactic was surprising, given that e.tv had to defend itself against similar allegations at last year’s HRC hearings. It should know, as well as any medium, how the race charge can be abused for expedient purposes.
Why does Golding operate in this way? In part, because of what one insider describes as a “corner-shop mentality” the petty despotism of the small owner-manager whose reflex is to stamp on the slightest internal or external challenge. Staff members accuse him and Patel of treating the channel as their personal fiefdom.
Staff who groan under Patel quote him as having said: “If I just sniff resistance, I crush it.” Independent film producers have referred to his “iron-fist rule”. His soprano screaming, demotion and sidelining of staff, regular threats to fire, and suffocating micro-management without the benefit of broadcast experience he even vets pop videos feature prominently in insiders’ accounts.
But the hatchet job on the M&G was more than a small-minded revenge mission it was a form of trade propaganda. According to BusinessMap, e.tv’s estimated loss for the year to end-March was R290-million. It was rumoured that Golding was looking for another R300-million from shareholders after borrowing R280-million from Rembrandt’s Venfin.
The losses have hit e.tv’s major funder, union-controlled Hosken Consolidated Investments, which lost R209-million over the same period. That the channel’s financial position remains precarious, despite viewership gains, is suggested by its refusal to pay end-of-year bonuses this year.
Fearful of the potential impact on advertisers and investors who could dig the channel out of its hole, Golding is apparently trying to scare off adverse publicity. Significantly, e.tv management has used editorial to grind its axes on a previous occasion. It mugged Business Day on air earlier this year, after the latter reported an e.tv staff petition about management interference in editorial.
There is no truth in Golding’s apparent perception that the rest of the media are ganging up on e.tv and want it to fail. Its collapse would put perhaps 300 people out of work and deny investors a proper return. As importantly, the channel is the only free alternative to the state-owned SABC as a source of televised information.
But journalists have to report the facts, however inconvenient. If they are worth their salt, intimidation only makes them more stubborn.
Establishing a new TV channel is tricky and expensive, and there can be no gainsaying Golding’s past achievements. He and his union partner John Copelyn built the initially lacklustre Hosken into a listed company with R2-billion market capitalisation. Cosatu’s clothing and mine unions benefited to the tune of R1,5-billion.
It is also somewhat unfair to beat him over the head with his union past. People can change course, and democracies do allow them to get rich.
But there are questions about their methods, described by writer Mark Gevisser as “cowboy capitalism”. One does not expect Golding, who built his personal profile on the backs of the unions and laid the foundations of his personal fortune through them, to grind the faces of his own employees. Good labour practice is, incidentally, among e.tv’s licence conditions.
A source in the investment community said the Golding/Copelyn factor was discounted in the share price, and that Hosken could see more opportunities if differently managed. Venfin is known to be worried about the centralisation of power at the channel in the hands of television amateurs, and to favour professional management.
Golding’s management style also seems to be among the reasons the Mineworkers’ Investment Company (MIC) has scaled down its stake in Hosken from a peak of 33% to 14%, amid speculation that it would pull out altogether if it could sell its stock. MIC is thought to feel that executive director Golding and Copelyn are insufficiently accountable.
Golding has defended the total of R4-million in bonuses paid to himself, Copelyn and another director while denying e.tv staff bonuses on grounds that they have separate incentive schemes.
But observers say it is far from clear Hosken has outperformed other private equity companies. How did its remuneration committee arrive at such a rosy view of Golding and Copelyn’s performance?
The danger with the current shenanigans is that they will reinforce already jaundiced perceptions about black empowerment in South Africa as the self-enrichment of a ruthless, self-serving elite.
Remarked BusinessMap’s Reg Rumney: “Such an appalling breach of journalistic ethics, alongside the corporate governance issues of the performance bonuses, does not bode well for e.tv or Hosken. One hopes the black empowerment groups heavily involved in media will not be tarred with the same brush.”