Limpopo premier Cassel Mathale on Wednesday retracted his call for City Press editor Ferial Haffajee to resign, his office said.
“The office reiterates its call for intolerance of inaccurate reporting, however it regrets its call for the editor of City Press to resign and as such retracts that part of the statement,” said spokesperson Phuti Mosomane.
The call had followed the dismissal of complaints made by the newspaper against two radio stations by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of SA (BCCSA).
The BCCSA ruled on Monday that the two stations had done enough to rectify incorrect reports on the press ombudsman’s ruling regarding complaints about the paper’s reports on corruption and tenders in Limpopo.
Mosomane said on Tuesday that City Press needed to make a “thorough self-introspection after a series of rulings by the press ombudsman and lately the BCCSA [which] consistently go against it and continue to expose the low standards of reporting by the paper”.
“It is time for the editor Ferial Haffajee to resign for she has failed to give strategic direction to the news weekly … The paper needs a new editor who will return it to its days of credible, reliable and quality reporting,” he said on the same day.
On Wednesday he admitted that this call was “a little bit too harsh”.
In September last year Limpopo premier Mathale lodged a complaint with the press ombudsman against the paper after it reported about corruption in the province and tenders rewarded to ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.
On January 24, SAfm invited Mosomane on to its morning show to speak about the ombudsman’s ruling. However, City Press was not invited to participate in the discussion.
During the interview Mosomane made “disparaging” remarks about City Press, creating the impression that the paper had been found guilty of “lies, malice and inaccurate” reporting.
On January 30, Sepedi radio station’s current affairs show interviewed the ANC Youth League’s provincial secretary Jacob Lebogo. During the interview Lebogo was “allowed to level a range of accusations” against City Press and its Limpopo correspondent Piet Rampedi.
The news reports were changed later the same day after City Press and Rampedi complained to the head of SABC radio current affairs programmes.
The BCCSA said in its judgment that the City Press‘s complaints were not upheld because the radio stations had corrected the news reports later the same day.
“Even if I wasn’t the editor, City Press would continue to do what it does, which is shine a spotlight on the provinces,” Haffajee told the Mail & Guardian on Tuesday.
Haffajee — a former editor of the M&G — said the media tended to forget that the biggest government spending occurred in the provinces, and this was where the greatest amount of corruption took place.
Haffajee said Rampedi’s “dogged” investigation into the awarding of a R44-million pharmaceutical contract to Malema’s cousin Tshepo, was one of hundreds of cases that the paper had investigated.
“They really are trying to snap shut the jaws of the watchdog,” said Haffajee, adding that the paper accepted the finding of the BCCSA. – Sapa and Staff reporter