Take a prominent figure in a hotel room with a young female activist, a condom and an injured husband, add the backdrop of a social-values conference on foreign soil — and you have the ingredients of a juicily gripping scandal.
From the moment the sordid details hit the headlines on Monday, the media itself has been scrutinised — and found wanting, experts say.
The week’s first major quandary for editors was whether to reveal the identity of the parties involved in the alleged rape by Judge Siraj Desai. Whatever happened in the early hours of Sunday morning took place in a foreign country, which meant that the country’s media laws concerning identity protection do not apply.
The Daily Sun and Beeld were the first newspapers to publish the name of the judge on Monday morning; others refrained from doing so.
”We decided to publish the name of the judge because it was in the interest of the public,” said Deon du Plessis, the Daily Sun’s publisher. But the paper made an ethical decision not to publish the name of the woman because he felt that as a rape victim she deserved ”protection”.
These two newspapers paved the way for other media organisations to name the judge. Talk radio station 702 — which the husband first called at 3am on Sunday morning with the rape allegation — withheld the identity of the judge until the daily newspapers named him.
”It was not a difficult ethical decision but we withheld it [the name] purposefully the whole of Sunday to abide by the [media] law,” said Yusuf Abramjee, station manager of 702. He said they decided to ”bend” the rules after the print media published the names because it would seem ”silly” not to identify him.
”We had full consent from the Isaacs to use their names, but we would have followed the golden rule until the judge pleaded [in court].”
Later that day The Star — which in its early Monday edition did not carry the names of either party —published pictures of all the parties, together with a photograph of Mark and his two daughters. By this time Judge Desai had appeared in an Indian court.
Moegsien Williams, editor of The Star, said their decision to publish the name of the judge on Monday afternoon was because a charge had been laid. ”When we were putting the story together on Sunday [for Monday’s early edition] there was simply a complaint lodged with the Indian police.”
He said in the absence of any confirmation with sources in India the newspaper upheld the ethical decision not to publish the name of the judge. Williams said the newspaper did not follow any other papers in its decision to publish but thought the photographs of the children were intrusive. ”An unusual circumstance [of this case] was the preparedness of the husband to operate with the media.”
The use of the photographs has been criticised by media analysts. ”The media should have weighed up the value added in publishing the photographs of the children,” said Bhartie Daya, researcher at the Media Monitoring Project.
She said the media should have interrogated the husband’s role in calling Radio 702. She said the husband’s behaviour was ”odd”. According to Daya no media law was flouted by revealing the identities, because the incident occurred in another country — but the media could have handled the coverage more ethically, despite the husband’s willingness to reveal all the names.
”The story went awry the minute the husband was allowed to speak on behalf of his wife,” said Jyoti Mistry, media analyst and senior lecturer at Wits University’s school of arts. ”The media has been indulgent towards [Mark] Isaacs.” She questioned his actions, saying they disempower an independent woman by disclosing a very personal and intimate incident.
For Mistry the lack of engagement by the media with the husband’s motives in talking about the incident on air was problematic.
But e.tv, the independent free channel, took a lonely stand by not mentioning the names the whole week.
Joe Thloloe, head of news, said the decision is in line with media law despite the incident having occurred in India. He said the audience is South African and both parties will be judged morally in this country. ”We have remained very firm not to identify the parties.”
He said e.tv will reveal the judge’s name once he has pleaded. Thloloe said he does not think the station is silly in not revealing the names, saying that the media coverage of the incident has ruined both parties’ reputations. ”If the majority of the media does wrong it does not mean we will follow.”
Anton Harber, Caxton professor of journalism and media studies at Wits University, said if he were an editor he would have been more cautious about a man who after hearing about the alleged rape of his wife calls a radio station.
”I think his behaviour should make editors very nervous that they are being used by an opportunistic publicity hound.”