A recent article in the publication noseweek alleging that the Presidency had threatened to pull all government advertising from two local radio stations if they failed to broadcast an interview with President Thabo Mbeki was ”pure fiction”, the Presidency said on Tuesday.
”It is pure fiction, and an indictment of the once-great profession of journalism,” presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga told the South African Press Association.
According to the noseweek story, radio stations Kaya FM and Yfm were unwilling to broadcast an interview with Mbeki if the conditions were that all questions to the president were preset, and all call-ins screened.
This had led to threats, allegedly from both the Presidency and the government communication and information services (GCIS), to withdraw all their advertising from the two stations if the hour-long interview did not happen.
Ratshitanga emphatically denied there had been any such threats, saying an interview had never taken place, and the Presidency had never initiated any discussion about an interview with Kaya FM.
”We never, ever threatened Kaya FM or anybody that we were going to withdraw advertising. We wouldn’t do something like that in a dozen lifetimes,” he said.
Kaya FM MD Charlene Deacon also lambasted noseweek, saying nothing in the story was true.
”It’s all hogwash … trash. The president was nowhere near this bungle,” she said.
Deacon was particularly concerned that noseweek had never approached Kaya FM for comment before running its story. — Sapa