In a recent edition of the Mail & Guardian, an entire page was devoted to a report with the less-than-arresting headline ”Decisive action approach”.
The report described the proceedings of a workshop on learning about action learning, something important enough to warrant its own acronym, LAL. The article was packed with the jargon of the NGO sector: ”demand-driven projects” jostled for attention with ”a national process [to] mainstream community-based services” and that old favourite, ”empowerment”.
It was illustrated with a collage of six small, grey pictures of people sitting around tables, contemplating flipcharts and PowerPoint presentations. The ordinary reader will have needed some tenacity to read far enough into the report to become aware that the workshop was dealing with an approach to fighting poverty that involved communities themselves.
It’s a worthy aim, undoubtedly, but it was not at first clear why a whole page was being devoted to an account of a workshop. In the context of the other headlines of the paper, this report stuck out like a sore thumb. It was remarkable for being spectacularly unremarkable.
I made some inquiries and discovered that the paper has since 2006 had an arrangement with the Southern Africa Trust, which gives the paper a grant to improve coverage and debate around poverty. That translates into a page in the Africa section every now and again — the frequency is due to rise to twice a month.
I was told that the agreement was for the topic and approach to be negotiated with the trust and that the page was subject to the M&G‘s editorial control. Except that, sometimes, the trust will push for a particular issue to be tackled.
Advertorial is a familiar part of newspapers. Extra money is earned by publishing supplements dealing with a product, company or, in some cases, a sector. You know the kind of thing: the bottom half of the page advertises a bank, for instance, and the top half contains something that looks like a news report and sings the bank’s praises. Many bank officials will be earnestly quoted.
This kind of thing is never going to win journalism prizes, but it’s not intrinsically wrong as long as it declares openly what it is. Readers need to know when material in front of them is governed by professional standards and when the paper is acting as a hired gun.
In this case, there was no indication that the page had been bought. There was a quarter-page ad for the trust at the bottom, but no sign it had paid for the rest of the page.
There is a temptation to treat NGOs differently because they tackle important issues in the public interest. But journalists should maintain a sceptical distance even from the good guys.
When it comes to their advertorial, it should be as clearly labelled as that of any bank. It’s simply a question of honest dealing with readers. In this case, too, it might be a good idea to assert the paper’s editorial authority. When it comes with a substantial cheque, advice on what to cover tends to carry more weight than it should.
It might also be a good idea to find more interesting subject matter. There should be no shortage of fascinating story opportunities that relate to poverty.
It would be in the interest of those buying the coverage, too.
Bushmen
I haven’t had the chance previously to thank those readers who responded to a column some time ago that dealt with the use of San or Bushmen to describe Southern Africa’s First Peoples.
Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu, senior heritage officer with Heritage Western Cape, wrote that he had decided to use ”Bushmen” in his research ”because of it being better known even by people outside academic circles.
”I knew of the word ‘Bushmen’ as a young boy growing up on the dusty streets in Newcastle. I only knew the word San once I started studying archaeology (rock art) at Wits in 1997. As long as I explained its negative connotations in the first paper where I used it, I felt confident that I had shown respect to the people it refers to.”
Another reader, Mark Ingle, wrote that the term ”bush” was used by the Bushmen as meaning ”what there is” or the universe. Quoting the linguist Patrick Dickens, he wrote: ”In their worldview there were the birds (of the bush), the bushes (of the bush), the jackals (of the bush) and so forth. By extension, and this was proclaimed with both dignity and pride, they regarded themselves as ‘the men of the bush’.”
It was ”an assertion of their human status in the midst of what there is”. The modern usage of ”bush” would have been meaningless, he wrote.
The Mail & Guardian’s ombud provides an independent view of the paper’s journalism. If you have any complaints you would like addressed, you can contact me at [email protected]. You can also phone the paper on 011 250 7300 and leave a message