What do you know, and how do you know it? That was the headline on a 2004 column by the public editor of the New York Times, Daniel Okrent, in which he dealt with a report on sex slavery in the United States.
The specifics of the article and criticism against it are unimportant in this context. But in the course of considering the issue, Okrent presented two descriptions of a house that had once harboured a sex slavery ring.
One was from the article, a picture of peace, complete with children playing and American flags: ”The neighbourhood is a leafy, middle-class Anytown.” The other was his own, a very different image of decay and corruption, with in the background ”the rotting hulk of an enormous 90-year-old Mack Truck factory, a dark satanic mill that would have been at home in any dying industrial city”.
Both descriptions were accurate in every detail, he wrote, adding: ”Not every journalist sees every fact from the same angle.”
He was investigating the extensive territory beyond the comfortable area of verifiable fact.
On this side there are simple things: names with a single correct spelling, numbers that can be calculated and checked, dates, times, positions. These are the ABCs of journalism.
On the other side, things get more complex, with significant opportunities as well as pitfalls. Reporters venturing here need to be clear-sighted and sure-footed. It’s where readers are offered perspective, as highlighted by Okrent, where the implications of a particular set of facts are teased out.
The Mail & Guardian’s reporting of sleaze falls squarely into this area. It has become an important focus, as the connections between the new South African political and the business elites have come under scrutiny. The issue has been central to the reporting of the web of connections around slain businessman Brett Kebble, associate Glenn Agliotti, police Commissioner Jackie Selebi and others.
The connections between these figures are often hard to define.
Nepotism is easier to establish: if a government official passes a contract on to a brother or a wife, the connection between the two, at least, is easy enough to prove.
But how does one show cronyism where ties of friendship are turned into ill-gotten gains? If businessman A gets a lucrative government contract from official B, how much of a connection between the two is necessary before impropriety can be supposed? One meeting at a cocktail party is clearly not enough to turn them into friends or associates. What about two private dinner parties? Collaboration in a business initiative several years ago?
The paper has worked hard to explain many of these connections, but sometimes it has taken refuge in the shorthand that two people are ”close friends” or similar. The formula is unsatisfactory; I’d rather see the evidence.
That means detailed reporting. If the story turns on a relationship between two people, that relationship must be clearly and convincingly established. It is not enough for one source to say, ”Oh, they are good friends.” Details of how that relationship plays itself out are ÂÂnecessary, preferably from a variety of sources.
The reporter needs to be sure there is sufficient evidence — and must then present it in a way that will persuade the audience. That’s sometimes not so easy. Readers need to see proof, but may also find a list of golf dates, braais and overlapping directorships a little tedious. In general, investigative stories live by forensic detail — and are often suffocated by it.
The M&G Online has a significant advantage here: it can make the detailed evidence available to those who want to drill down into the specifics, while not slowing down those readers who want just the core information. In time, the paper may well come to play second fiddle to the website, in which case stories of this kind will probably be handled quite differently.
Whatever the solution, the challenge remains the same: to make sure that where a report connects the dots to show a larger truth, it also allows readers to see the dots that are being connected.
Relics
Reader Paul Adams recently objected to a discussion about Christian relics in the March 2 edition. He was unhappy with reference to the claim by a certain Saint Bridget that she had received bits of the Holy Prepuce from an angel, and that it gave her orgasmic sensations when she put it on her tongue.
Adams felt the reference was offensive and ”little short of blasphemous”.
But I felt that reference was justified by the context, a light-hearted look at some of the stranger medieval beliefs against the background of a film director’s recent claim to have found the tombs of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and their son. Also, the claim seems to come out of the church’s own tradition.
The M&G’s ombud provides an independent view of the paper’s journalism. If you have any complaints you would like addressed, you can contact Franz Krüger at [email protected]. You can also phone the paper on 011 250 7300 and leave a message