Media make their X for 10

Opening canned journalism

Sifting the facts from fiction is often a work in progress. Different interpretations and counter-claims emerge as a story evolves. To evaluate the significance along the way is the stuff of yet further controversy.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, in regard to my previous column, titled ”Canned journalism”, some of those named in it have had points to pursue.

Both Helen Ueckermann of Rapport and her editor feel I was unfair to her. Meanwhile, the source of the story, Willem Steenkamp, has his own take on what happened.

The background was the remarkable similarities between Ueckermann’s story in Rapport and that in Finansies & Tegniek concerning Steenkamp’s invention of ”pap-en-vleis” in a tin.

Essentially, my column was a complaint about journalists regurgitating what they’re given by sources. Hence the title ”Canned journalism” — as in ”canned” hunting in which there’s no real tracking and discovery. Instead, it’s all laid on for the trophy seeker to bag the goodies with minimum exertion.

Get a sense of the debate by reading the protagonists’ points of view and my responses below. It’s a very South African thing — a can of mopanie worms, perhaps.

From: WILLEM STEENKAMP (PAP-EN-VLEIS MAN)

To: GUY BERGER

Mr Berger,

I send my story to both parties before Colleen asked me any questions. After she asked me certain questions I upgraded the whole story only with the answers (not the questions) and with more detail to make the article more complete and send it to both of them.

One must bear in mind that there’s only one story I could tell. The story in both publications starts with more or less the same sentence, but I did not write that, only gave the facts and they had to fill in the rest.

I think the story in both publications starts accidentally with the same words, because pap (maize meal) and meat (braaivleis) are always referred to as South African and therefore ”pap, braaivleis en sonskyn”.

I did not send a draft of Colleen’s story to Helen!

I’m sorry if I handled the matter in a wrong way, but it was my first encounter with the press. I’m learning fast.

Regards

Willem Steenkamp

From: HELEN UECKERMANN (RAPPORT JOURNALIST)

To: GUY BERGER

Dear Prof Berger,

I just noticed your article about Colleen Naude, pap-en-vleis in a can and myself on the Mail & Guardian Online.

I was quite surprised to see that you interpreted my comments to you as [that I had] actually used parts of the e-mail with the answers to Colleen’s questions in my own story. That was not the case, as I have also explained to Colleen when we ran into each other at a breakfast function last week.

As I mentioned to you in our telephone conversation last month, I did receive my information from Mr Steenkamp who approached me in November already, and it was only about two days before my deadline in January that the wretched e-mail reached me. By then my own story had been written and the e-mail was sent to me in reaction to last-minute questions to Mr Steenkamp.

That was also the first time I became aware that Colleen was working on the story as well. Point is: what was reflected in my article were facts I got from Mr Steenkamp myself.

Ethics: Of course journalists get away with a lot and take their chances. I don’t think any honest journalist can deny that. In this case however, I meant that I would not drop the story just because someone else was also working on it and might have been working on it before I did.

I had all the right in the world to scoop her since I got the information in an honest manner. I certainly did not request answers to her questions from anybody and I have been a journalist for far too long to simply plagiarise from the copy of ”a professional”.

I am really sorry about the slant of your article since it does not reflect what really happened and also about your undeserved ”advice” towards the end.

Kind regards

Helen Ueckermann

Specialist Journalist and Production Editor

Sake-Rapport

From: GUY BERGER

To: HELEN UECKERMANN

Hi Helen,

Thanks for your comments. I make a few responses below.

Ueckermann wrote: ”As I mentioned to you in our telephone conversation last month, I did receive my information from Mr Steenkamp who approached me in November already, and it was only about two days before my deadline in January that the wretched e-mail reached me. By then my own story had been written and the e-mail was sent to me in reaction to last-minute questions to Mr Steenkamp. That was also the first time I became aware that Colleen was working on the story as well. Point is: what was reflected in my article were facts I got from Mr Steenkamp myself.”

I am sorry that you did not make all this clear in the interview I had with you. Nonetheless, even in the light of this, I think my main argument still stands: journalists ought to be adding value to the information they receive. That would entail bringing a unique set of questions to bear, which would elicit unique information — that is, bringing to the surface things that no one else is getting.

It would mean scrutinising facts and claims more closely — Mr Steenkamp got very good PR for his product from both stories! All this so that, in the end, the public domain is enriched by a wider variety of information and more depth on the story.

Ueckermann wrote: ”Ethics: Of course journalists get away with a lot and take their chances. I don’t think any honest journalist can deny that. In this case, however, I meant that I would not drop the story just because someone else was also working on it and might have been working on it before I did. I had all the right in the world to scoop her since I got the information in an honest manner. I certainly did not request answers to her questions from anybody and I have been a journalist for far too long to simply plagiarise from the copy of ‘a professional’.”

Yes, I did not say this was simple plagiarism. On the other hand, ethical issues do arise even outside of pure plagiarism. It depends, I guess, whether one sees ethics as a constraint on one’s journalism (and what a person can get away with), or whether they are a more empowering set of guidelines.

Either way, they can conflict with competitiveness, but they still have a bearing. I don’t know if Colleen was reassured after you guys spoke, or whether in retrospect you might have tried to do something differently (for example avoided angles that she had in her story, and highlighted different information).

Of course in hindsight, it is clear that your scoop would end up making her look like a copycat — and probably this was not evident at the time.

With that knowledge, now, it may be that you would have a different ethical response to a similar situation in the future. You took a chance, as it were, and maybe while you can justify it, you are not entirely happy with it now. So, that’s how things move along.

Ueckermann wrote: ”I am really sorry about the slant of your article since it does not reflect what really happened and also about your undeserved ”advice” towards the end.”

I am not sure it was undeserved, in the sense that once you knew you were receiving the same info as Colleen had gotten, there were options. One, which you took, was to beat her to publishing it. The other option would have been, as I indicated, to go further and differentiate yourself with another angle and a set of facts that were not simply gleaned from Steenkamp’s pat-answers.

Colleen told me that those parts of the story that are in your article and which were not published in F&T were in fact in her original, but cut for length in the magazine. In other words, we had no new information despite the fact that two journalists were exploring the story. That to me is a pity.

I’m happy to continue this dialogue further if you wish.

Best wishes

Guy Berger

From: DAVID VAN ROOYEN (EDITOR, SAKE-RAPPORT)

To: GUY BERGER

Prof Berger,

I take the strongest possible exception to your article in the Mail & Guardian Online dated March 23 2004.

I would expect that somebody with your credentials would make sure of the facts before publishing an article in which the name of a senior journalist is smeared without any foundation.

What annoys me even more is that you did not have the decency to let her know beforehand that you planned to smear her name in a published article, or gave her opportunity to respond to the allegations against her.

The facts, whether it fits in with your story or not, are as follows.

Steenkamp contacted Helen in November last year and offered her the story. We decided almost two months later to go with the story for that particular issue of February 2 because we had space available. The newspapers during December and January were very small. The decision was taken early in the week.

She independently interviewed him and the story was already completed when she contacted him shortly before publication to confirm when the product would be available in the stores. It was only then that Steenkamp sent her additional information and he told her that he had sent the same information to F&T.

If you had been in journalism, you would know that this is nothing unusual as publicists try to get the widest possible coverage.

There was no way that Helen, or me, could have known that the ”additional information” was his reply on written questions sent to him by F&T. We did not use this information as the basis for our article, as it had already been written.

To suggest that we might have acted unethically by publishing the story because F&T was also working on the subject, or because we received information that he also gave to F&T, is laughable. Even more laughable is the suggestion that we had to look for a different angle because of that.

When we went to press the story still had not been not published anywhere and we presented it as news. There are no ethics involved. The facts in both stories are more or less the same, because those were the facts that were available.

The real facts are that Steenkamp contacted as many journalists as possible to get the widest possible coverage for his new product, which is his right to do so. He was unethical to sent his answers on Colleen’s questions to us, and he apologised to her, but now Helen is undeservedly the culprit.

The fact that both stories appeared within two days is purely coincidental. I only knew about the story in F&T when I saw it in the magazine.

So my advice to you is: make sure of your facts before you write. Your suggestion that Helen stumbled across information that F&T had uncovered and presented it as her own, is a blatant and unfounded lie. She deserves an apology.

Your feeble reply to her e-mail that you didn’t suggest it was plagiarism does not satisfy me. You did exactly that in no uncertain terms and you should have the courage to admit your mistake. All your comments on the so-called options that she had is a lot of jargon from somebody who does not seem to have the faintest idea of what is happening in a newsroom. The only option she had was to be first with the story.

David van Rooyen

Editor

Sake-Rapport

From: GUY BERGER

To: DAVID VAN ROOYEN (EDITOR, SAKE-RAPPORT)

Hello David

Thanks for your feedback. Debate is a good thing, I am sure you will agree. So here is my response.

I think your criticism is a bit unfair — I interviewed Helen precisely about the whole story. During this, she did not once indicate that the information e-mailed her by Steenkamp was not used for her article. I would have thought this would have been very germane for her to raise at the time, if indeed it was the case. On the contrary, she gave the clear impression that her objective was only to beat Colleen, and that this was ethically justified.

My point is that if she became aware that she had been given the same information as another journalist, then it would have been better practice to revisit the story for something different … and in the interests of collegiate relations. You may disagree with this — but there are also many journalists who would agree with it.

Van Rooyen wrote: ”Even more laughable is the suggestion that we had to look for a different angle because of that.”

I am not sure why this should be laughable — I would think you guys would have wanted to differentiate yourselves with your own angle.

Van Rooyen wrote: ”When we went to press the story still had not been not published anywhere and we presented it as news. There are no ethics involved. The facts in both stories are more or less the same, because those were the facts that were available.”

On this I don’t agree. A journalist’s job is to dig up new facts, not be content with the facts available.

Van Rooyen wrote: ”All your comments on the so-called options that she had is a lot of jargon from somebody who does not seem to have the faintest idea of what is happening in a newsroom. The only option she had was to be first with the story.”

My belief is that there are no ”only options”. Ethical choices exist all the time.

In addition, whether I have more or less newsroom experience does not affect the issue at hand. This issue is: once Helen knew that her story risked being the same as that of another journalist, she should preferably have thought through about what this meant — for her story and for a fellow journalist. Just publishing first (which happened only because of the difference between the paper and the magazine’s deadlines) is not the most creative or sensitive response to the incident. I would be surprised if Helen were to proceed in exactly the same way in a similar situation.

Best wishes

Guy Berger