How we should be reading and reacting to the Zondo reports
In reporting on the Zondo reports, we need to make unknown names famous if they deserve to become well-known villains. It would be wrong to focus on minor characters who might be famous or notorious, but who are not in the public interest.
A danger of having a lot of information available to us as citizens is that accountability, ironically, can be compromised if that information is not properly mined, synthesised and analysed.
Part one of the State Capture Report is an example of this. It is more than 800 pages and is but the first of three instalments of Justice Raymond Zondo’s final findings. There are three big pitfalls to be avoided. The first is focusing insufficiently on institutions. At the heart of State Capture lies the destruction of our institutions. These obviously included state-owned entities, but equally disturbing was the destruction of institutions that were supposed to protect us from State Capture. For example, we have yet to reckon fully with the political role of the State Security Agency.
The agency was in cahoots with the likes of former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni. She never acted alone. She was able to hollow out SAA because other state institutions allowed the public aviation sector to be fleeced.
What does this mean? It would be a mistake to under-emphasise the importance of repairing broken institutions and systems. Close analysis of institutions and systems has been missing from reportage. What were the design faults that allowed SAA to be so porous? How could SOEs misdirect public money to The New Age newspaper?
The second pitfall is implicated parties going to court to try to delay scrutiny. The principle of innocent until proven guilty is a phrase used by the guilty and innocent alike. “Let’s wait for the courts to pronounce on this,” it goes. It is wrong to think of courts as the only forums where accountability can be meted out. Our democracy has given no more power to courts and judges than it has to ordinary citizens and voters, so we carry an equal and parallel duty to ask about the behaviour of individuals and institutions, and to demand answers and assess those answers. This is especially critical when those institutions and individuals are likeable.
The implication of Nedbank, for instance, as a potential enabler of corruption raised a lot of eyebrows, but questions became muted when the bank said it did no wrong.
Both the media and the public, like the investigative authorities, should be bombarding Nedbank with questions about the Acsa transaction; no need to wait for the courts.
The third pitfall is focusing on minor characters who might be of interest to the public but who are not in the public interest.
The distinction is important. If someone is a legitimate accountability target, they should be named and shamed. Myeni was not a minor character in the State Capture game and should get the attention and scrutiny we have see in public discussion on the report so far. Focusing on her should not be at the expense of simultaneously focusing on institutional questions and systems analysis.
We often follow the lives of public figures with morbid fascination. There was a fixation on Edwin Sodi’s fancy cars and with Markus Jooste’s high-rolling lifestyle – often at the expense of understanding how Jooste was able to bamboozle a highly educated board into neglecting its fiduciary duty or how Sodi and Blackhead Consulting manipulated the Public Finance Management Act.
We, as readers, viewers and listeners, are also interested in things that are not of material concern to the public. This difference must be taken into account by media when unpacking State Capture.
What does this mean practically? If you see a famous name, for example, in a footnote, the question to ask is whether or not that name is central to the theft of public money, the destruction of our institutions or the enabling thereof, or if said person or institution’s “presence” at the crime scene is innocuous at worst, or irrelevant at best.
That is but one example of public interest versus of interest to the public.
The journalistic challenge is to tell the real story of the report so well that the media can make money while also being ethical.
With parts two and three of the report forthcoming and media houses competing for mindshare, it is hoped that none will let the crooks get away by focusing on noncore issues or minor characters.