Political journalists are often pawns in factional fights

The only surprise about the Sunday Times’s admission that the newspaper was used by political factions is that people in the media are surprised.

The newspaper has apologised for being used in its reporting on Cato Manor “death squads”. Earlier, its reports on the SA Revenue Service “rogue unit” were found to have been inspired by people who were trying to make Sars safe for cigarette smugglers.

This, however, was no freak accident it was waiting to happen. The only puzzle is that only one news source has been forced to admit that it passed off as truth the claims of political factions. A fair chunk of the political reporting we read, hear or see is a product of “leaks” by politicians to the media. There are factional battles in all the major parties and one way in which factions fight is to feed the media embarrassing nuggets about their opponents.

One sign of where this can lead is the case of the senior political reporter on a major newspaper who covered an entire ANC conference from a coffee shop in suburban Johannesburg. As he sipped lattes, delegates would text leaks to his phone.

He reported what they told him and carried on sipping. This might be extreme, but relying on leaks from politicians is a stock in trade for many political journalists. The problem this creates for truth — and for the citizenry’s chances of receiving accurate political information — should be obvious.

Politicians who fight factional battles do not leak “information” to the media because they are deeply committed to informing the public. They do it to gain political advantage. Whether what they leak is true is incidental: the question is whether it helps them win and keep power.

Given this, journalists who are committed to truth treat leaks as the beginning, not the end, of what they report. They check each leak with sources on both sides of the factional divide to ensure that, as far as possible, they know that what they write is true and that their audience is told both sides of a story. However, this sort of checking is not the norm. It is, in reality, very unusual.

Why are media so willing to allow themselves to be used?

The most obvious answer is that it is a lot easier to repeat leaks than to do the slog work of finding out the truth. There was a time when writing about political high-ups in this country was difficult — reporters needed to cultivate sources, win their trust and work out whether to believe what they said.

No longer — it may now take more effort to avoid leaks than to find them. And there is no incentive to cut off the supply by questioning what the source of the leaks says.

Another reason is the cult of the scoop. Media set great store by beating their competition to the “news”, and checking whether the information is true makes it harder to be first. But there is no evidence that the public prefers media that are first to those that are accurate. Much of the scoop cult is about journalistic egos, not what the public want and need.

Most political journalists also love to be insiders — they feel good about being in touch with people who hold office and make decisions. Worrying about whether they are being used gets in the way of cosying up to highly placed people.

All of this works well for media unless they are caught — which is rare because the leak culture creates its own political reality, whatever is really happening. It does not work well for South Africans who are forced to make do with what politicians say about each other rather than real political news.

● Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg