Hazel Friedman, winner of this year’s Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award, believes she has passed through all the trenches of this cut-throat industry.
She has done freelance work for most of the big names in the business, including the Mail & Guardian, and recently accepted a permanent position at the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation’s Special Assignment investigative news programme.
At the Vodacom awards ceremony in Midrand last week, Friedman won the category for the best television news feature as well as the overall prize for her feature on conditions in South African jails, particularly focusing on male rape. The feature was broadcast on Special Assignment, where she was freelancing at the time.
From Cape Town, she speaks to the M&G Online about For the Boys, her award-winning prison feature, and her views of South African journalism.
1. What prompted you to do this feature on conditions in South African jails?
It has always been of great concern to me, so it was a couple of factors, particularly in the context of our antiquated sexual offences laws, which do not recognise sodomy or any form of sexual assault on males as rape.
Access to survivors and perpetrators of rape behind bars was achieved through the courage and intrepid initiatives of a former Pollsmoor warder, Lizelle Alberts.
Together with fellow warders Chris Malgas and Eddie Johnson, she established an organisation in prison called Friends against Abuse, which, utilising inmates, provided counselling and safe cells for victims. She has since joined the Inspectorate of Prisons and has completed a groundbreaking master’s degree on the subject of male rape behind bars, in which she confronts the horrific consequences for victims even after their release.
In particular, she identified the alarming cycle of victims who become perpetrators in order to reclaim their manhood, [and] the fact that in prison, rape is so ritualised that it is a way of life and a necessary initiation into the prison gangs.
Most importantly, she underscored the disturbing fact that South African jails and prisons are havens for serial rapists, many of whom were initially convicted for non-violent crimes but who have since — whether in juvenile “places of safety” or adult prisons — become schooled in sexual violence against both males and females.
Do you think your feature contributed to help improve prison conditions?
Absolutely, unequivocally not. The story certainly raised awareness in broader society about the “open secret” of rape behind bars and scared the shit out of law-abiding citizens who might get arrested for unpaid traffic fines and get thrown into a holding cell filled with rabid, violent serial offenders.
It certainly proved cathartic for me and, hopefully, for both the perpetrators and survivors who had the courage to speak out. But in terms of being a catalyst for improving conditions, unfortunately not. Only through rigorous follow-ups and pressure on correctional services could that possibly happen, and I was admittedly remiss in doing so.
2. How did you feel going into prisons and speaking to people who had had terrible experiences?
Our work often entails clawing at the underbelly of human experience. But from even the darkest crevices, one can extract light. This was very much my experience in For the Boys. Although the subject was so harrowing, I emerged with an overwhelming sense of admiration and compassion for the inmates courageous enough to speak out.
Was there ever a time when you didn’t want to go?
Yes. In the early stages of my research I couldn’t find people who trusted me enough to make their private pain public, and I despaired of ever getting a powerful story together. But when the pieces began to fit and inmates began speaking out, I knew I had become the vessel for a very powerful story about violation and survival.
3. What was the response from the Department of Correctional Services after the broadcast of your story?
Correctional services ignored my requests for an interview until they saw the promo. The day of broadcast, spokesperson Manolisi Wahlihle visited the SABC and was duly interviewed. But this didn’t placate the minister. He threatened to have the programme barred and proceeded to make intimidating calls to former warder Lizelle Alberts, which continued after the programme had been broadcast.
The irony is that I had no intention of exposing the ineptitude and apathy of correctional services. My aim was to explore the emotional pain of survivors and highlight the broader systemic deficiencies that have enabled rape to become so ritualised in prison.
But the paranoid, defensive response of correctional services served to galvanise the story into an indictment of the department. Having said all of that, their reactions were of absolute paranoia and defensiveness and they were absolutely intimidating to Lizelle’s position, as she was seen as a whistle-blower thereafter.
4. Problems have been reported at all levels of South Africa’s criminal justice system. Is the solution to build more prisons and train more police officers?
Certainly police officers need more rigorous training in counselling skills and intervention methodologies insofar as rape survivors (both male and female) are concerned. The incipient culture of corruption in South African prisons also needs to be eliminated and, possibly, we need more prisons to be built specialising in specific crimes, instead of a one-size-fits-all fortress where non-violent offenders are vulnerable to abuse and deviant skills training by hardened offenders.
But ultimately South Africa needs rehabilitation programmes that do not only provide holistic “skills training” but also tackle the very sensitive subject of sexual abuse in prison through intensive counselling. Without such interventions, victims in prison are in danger of becoming perpetrators outside.
What needs to be understood is we are not conducting a severe witch-hunt on a certain department, but we must admit that there are many deficiencies in infrastructure in South African prisons.
Do you think the death penalty should be reinstated?
Well I don’t have a clear-cut answer to that … I mean, there are unbearable crimes against humanity that we see and hear about every day — things like serial rapes of children and intentional killings — but I still think that death is the easy way. All that will ever happen to the perpetrators is that they will get an injection and die. I think they must also go through some form of pain.
The other thing I believe strongly in is naming and shaming, so if someone who has countless cases of rape of children would have a tattoo on his forehead saying, ‘I am a pedophile.’
That is just the way it should be, although I think that people that commit crimes are scared of divine repercussions, so they would hate to die because they are scared of being faced with their maker or whatever they believe in when they die. Still, I don’t think it’s a good idea..
There are, however, people who are beyond rehabilitation so those would maybe have to be sent to some island because the reality is that we would need to do a heck of a lot of research on the death penalty before we attempt to implement it. But I don’t think it is an adequate way of dealing with crime.
5. What do you think of the state of media freedom in South Africa?
It is positive, but precarious. The rights of the fourth estate are rigorously protected by our Constitution, but the dangers of these becoming eroded are self-evident. I think one of the greatest threats to media freedom emanates form the media itself — the temptations of succumbing to expediency and sycophancy and of becoming unwilling (or willing) pawns in someone else’s game, especially the party game. You find yourself being a pawn of the ANC or the DA or whichever one. The thing is that we find ourselves being the mouthpiece of someone else’s agenda.
Journalists are placed in the invidious position of sometimes having to pander to the interests of powerful, monopolistic, global publishing empires in the interests of advertising or special-interest groups. The danger of a culture of “mediacrity” can never be underestimated.
6. How do you rate the standard of investigative television journalism in South Africa?
Generally, I think, given limitations of resources, time and space, it’s outstanding. The investigative divisions of print media such as that of the M&G and Sunday Times come to mind, as well as, of course my own team of intrepid drain-sniffers, Special Assignment and our colleagues and competitors Carte Blanche and Third Degree. But I would willingly donate my liver for some of the breaking stories the print media have succeeded in publishing.
How can it be improved?
We need a bigger budget, more investigative resources, less pandering to the will and whim of political or corporate interest groups. We also need a greater interface with people in the news because I find that there is much severance between news, current affairs and investigative journalism whereas there could be a collaboration of news and investigation.
In television I also think that we should acknowledge our cameramen more because, I have to say, with For the Boys, most of the footage that was there was archive footage from the visuals department because I didn’t do the interviews in the prisons, and had it not been for my camerapersons I would not have been able to edit the way that I did. So, yes, just acknowledge you team as an investigative journalist.
7. Do you think that journalism students are trained well enough to prepare them for investigative journalism?
It’s a yes and a no. The most efficacious education, obviously, occurs in the trenches. I think in general, student journalists are equipped with a comprehensive, broad kick-start. What I’ve found, though (with regard to print), is that while students are fluent in theory and technology, their basic literary and expressive skills are sometimes disturbingly lacking.
I also think it should be mandatory for journalism students to do an internship with a private investigation company. Although the prying-spying game is a dodgy business indeed, aspirant investigative journos need to learn more about surveillance, undercover operations and the other covert tricks and tools so essential to our industry. And textbooks should include Sun Tsui’s The Art of War. This should be mandatory for all politicians, investigative journalists and professional drain-sniffers.
8. What kind of reporting is closest to your heart?
At Special Assignment they call me “queen of the sleaze beat” for not-so-subtle reasons, but I have no specific preferences. I like to feed off the unsung heroes of South Africa. They keep me optimistic and thankful for the miracle of being part of a dynamic, volatile democracy.
9. What are you working on now?
I’m researching developments (or the lack thereof) with our Amended Sexual Offences Bill, which was passed by the National Assembly, but is not yet law. In the interim, anal penetration with a baseball bat is still regarded as indecent assault and carries a relatively mild sentence. I’m also thinking of a follow-up to For the Boys called For the Men.
10. What are you going to do with the money that you won?
After paying my dues to everyone who assisted with the programme — and there are many — I plan to cast all JC (journalistic correctness) aside and indulge, indulge, indulge. My car was recently stolen, so as soon as all the people that worked get their share, then I will buy myself a car.