Statement drafted by Appeals Panel of the Press Council for publication by the M&G
The Appeals Panel of the Press Council of South Africa has upheld the ruling of the council’s ombudsman that the Mail & Guardian and one of its reporters erred in its reporting of allegations against businessman Robert Gumede.
Complaints against the newspaper by Gumede relate to two articles by Adriaan Basson, the first published on October 17 2008, under the headline “Major ANC donor in graft probe” and the second, on November 7 2008, under the headline “Gumede ‘not off the hook'”. In addition to the two articles, Gumede objected to an M&G poster that read “Key Zuma funder in graft probe”.
The articles alleged that a criminal case of corruption had been opened against Gumede and that, as chairman of listed information technology company GijimaAST, he had bribed Telkom executives to win a R600-million tender.
The Ombudsman ruled that the articles were unfair, inaccurate and unbalanced in that there were material omissions in the presentation of the known facts. The poster was misleading. The M&G appealed the ruling of the Ombudsman (which is available on the Press Council website: www.presscouncil.org.za).
The crucial test applied by the appeals panel, headed by ex-Appeals Court judge Ralph Zulman, was: were the reports and the poster fair to Gumede? The panel found they were not.
Basson, who said he had based his initial report on information received from an anonymous source, was found by the panel to have been slipshod in his reporting in that he did not try to confirm this information with the police or the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
If he had, he would have discovered that the complaint had been laid by former business associate, John Sterenborg, with whom Gumede has been engaged in a long and acrimonious business dispute and that, on the basis of initial investigations, the NPA had decided long before the first article appeared not to charge Gumede.
Sterenborg was unhappy with this decision and laid a further complaint and which the police once again investigated, which was the subject of the second article, attempting to justify the first.
The panel respected Basson’s confidence in his source but pointed out that this did not absolve him from the responsibility of attempting to confirm the allegations with official organs — that is, the police and NPA — or making it clear that he was relying on a single anonymous source.
In addition, the ordinary reader would probably have formed a different opinion if the antagonistic role of Sterenborg had been more clearly stated in the two articles.
Regarding the poster, the panel ruled it contravened clause 5:2 of the Press Code, which states posters should not mislead the public. Gumede had made it clear in public and in response to questions from Basson before publication of the two articles that he had never given donations to President Jacob Zuma (as stated on the poster). It was no secret that he had made donations to the ANC — not only during the tenure of Zuma but also those of former party presidents Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. He said he had also made donations to other political parties. The use of Zuma’s name on the poster was, the panel said, incorrect, misleading, unfair to Gumede and possibly mischievous.
In directing that the M&G publish this ruling and apologise to Gumede, the Appeals Panel was mindful of the fact that, apart from Sterenborg’s possibly vexatious complaints, there is no evidence that Gumede bribed Telkom or anyone else and that the NPA has recently declined for a second time to pursue Sterenborg’s complaints against Gumede. The appeal against the original ruling of the Ombudsman was rejected, save that:
Reference to the “R600-million Telkom tender” was, in the absence of firm evidence to the contrary, found to have been “substantially accurate”; and
The naming of the then director of the NPA (Adv Vusi Pikoli) in the second article was factually correct, albeit gratuitous.
The appeal in respect of these two statements alone was upheld. Taking all the circumstances into account, the Appeals Panel considered that the treatment meted out to Gumede by the M&G was patently unfair and that he is due an apology by the newspaper, which we hereby tender.
Read M&G editor-in-chief Nic Dawes’s response, Flawed but substantially true