/ 7 December 2007

Blogging sub-editor to battle dismissal

Axed Sowetan sub-editor Llewellyn Kriel will on Monday appeal against the findings of the disciplinary hearing that led to his dismissal and made him the first South African fired for blogging.

Kriel was dismissed last Thursday when he was found to have brought the company’s name into disrepute through a blog posted on the Mail & Guardian Online‘s Thought Leader on November 13.

Thought Leader is an invitation-only blogging platform for South African opinion-makers from many backgrounds, including politics, sport, the media and marketing.

Kriel was accused of leaking “confidential corporate information” through a rival publication’s website.

In the blog, he referred to an internal memorandum distributed to staff, informing them that “all new appointments had been banned”. He wrote that morale and standards at the Sowetan had dropped and expressed his frustration at staff shortages.

In a subsequent blog, he apologised for any offence he had caused and wrote: “It was not my intention to hurt my young colleagues and I acknowledge I used some harsh turns of phrase. But I am a journalist — and a very concerned one at that — and everything I wrote is as true and as valid today as it has been for the desperately frustrating 18 months since we (for I am joyously not alone) first raised them.”

Kriel claims his dismissal was unconstitutional.

In the subsequent blog, he also wrote: “We as the news media should be ashamed that we see nothing wrong with pillorying Sneaky Snuki and Dilly Dali, but keep our dirty little secrets silent. We gleefully splash Britney’s punani across the front page, but cannot debate our very serious problems in the open.”

On Friday, he said: “I am passionate about freedom of expression and I was exercising my constitutional right when I posted the blog. I certainly did not intend to offend any of my colleagues. Media in South Africa need to wake up quickly; there is an entirely new face to the media worldwide, influenced by cyberspace.”

Kriel’s case has drawn attention to laws regarding company confidentiality and internet communication developments.

“I will continue to blog. It is important that these issues are debated,” said Kriel. “Media in five years’ time will be different to media today and if these issues are not addressed, South Africa will still be playing catch-up with the rest of the world.”