Right of reply
SA media and the press ombud
I’m sweating. Interviewing politicians and gangsters is stressful enough but this is a make-or-break story — one false fact and I’ll be hauled before the press ombud, which is a problem because the person I’m interviewing is the press ombud. Actually I’ve already made a mistake, Pippa Green is not the ombud yet. Not until April 1, when she officially becomes the referee between the media and the people on whom the media report.
The ombud, a function of the Press Council, settles complaints against print and online publications. The ombud is part of the industry’s commitment to freedom of expression and makes sure journalists report ethically and abide by the press code.
There was a universal outpouring of approval when Green’s appointment was announced last month. The adjectives that flowed were “integrity”, “fair”, “just”, with a smattering of “experienced” and “veteran”, and a “seasoned” or three.
She may be universally liked now, but that might change by the end of her term. Green, now based at the University of Cape Town, has been in the news industry for three decades and knows she will have to make some tough decisions against former colleagues. She accepts that.
“I don’t expect to be liked, which is why I must take my dogs to Johannesburg with me — they say if you want to be liked, get a dog! I do hope that the office has respect and the lines of communication are open so there is a conversation about the press code and ethics and what it means to be involved in the industry at this point in SA’s history.”
From apartheid to state capture
This point in SA’s history is a world away from the point where Green began her journalism career in the early 1980s — the dark apartheid days of censorship, press restrictions and emergency regulations.
Reporting runs in Green’s blood — her mother was a journalist and her late father Michael was editor-in-chief of the Daily News and the Sunday Tribune in Durban before he retired.
His daughter cut her news chops at the Cape Argus, reporting on labour issues. One of her first stories was on a dairy workers’ strike, which made the front page only because the strike meant the Argus’s readers wouldn’t get milk.
In those pre-digital years, Green made her way to Crossroads townships a few times a week. She’d walk around the community and ask questions to get a real sense of the issues facing people.
“I don’t think that happens now because of the pressures on young reporters who have to cover three court cases, two rapes, and a fire — it’s very difficult,” she says.
Journalists were able to cover stories in depth and being close to the community taught Green that sometimes it’s inconvenient to report the truth, but it’s never a good idea not to report the truth.
“We had political people that we all admired, brave UDF leaders; we all wanted apartheid to go, but our job was different.”
And that’s her message to journalists today: truth matters, facts matter.
“Your job, however difficult, is to try to get to the truth — it doesn’t help anyone if you don’t tell the truth.”
Unhappy newspaper history
Thirty-five years on, Green is still appalled at the internal censorship that took place at the Argus. She refers to the coverage of the “Trojan horse” massacre in Athlone as an example. On October 15 1985, a truck loaded with crates drove down the road where an anti-government protest was happening. Policemen, hiding behind the crates, jumped out and opened fire, killing
Jonathan Claasen, 21, Shaun Magmoed, 15, and 11-year-old Michael Miranda.
Green, who was working as a copy editor that day, remembers that the only local photographer on the scene was Willie de Klerk, who had a nose for what was going on.
“The other reporters had gone to cover a march somewhere else but he sensed there was going to be trouble. It was a big risk to take the pictures. The Argus used the photo he took postage-stamp sized on page 2. On the front page they used a photo of a casspir that had overturned in Langa.
“I was gobsmacked. I went out myself the next day to speak to the families — and I could see that the atmosphere had changed from angry to wild on both sides. A police van came down the road and got trapped by people. The police shot their way out. We were on the edge of the civil war and the newspaper I was working for was not reflecting that. It was a big disappointment.”
She’s learnt that the principles of journalism span repressive regimes and democratic regimes. She talks about the two stories that have dominated the day’s news — the first is the fake resurrection performed by Pastor Alph Lukau. She is irked by the amount of media attention it has received.
“This guy in the coffin,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s the subject of talk radio, it’s on news bulletins, it’s all over social media. It’s extraordinary, quite frankly — that there are so many issues in the country, which are sidelined by a distraction. It’s ridiculous.”
The other story is the rape accusation against ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa. She says that while she’s not in a position to comment on whether the accusation is true or not, she was struck by the timing and the fact that a charge hasn’t been laid.
It’s the murky politics of smears, dirty tricks and fake news that will test Green as she takes her place in the press ombud’s hot seat with a little more than a month to go before the elections. In the run-up to the polls she suspects her basket of complaints is likely to runneth over.
“I hope journalists do their jobs because false accusations can be ruinous. I hope our journalists can do what CNN and the New York Times do with Donald Trump, reporting on what he says but also doing a fact-check at the same time. It’s difficult without resources, but it’s important that claims people make, particularly about governance, are checked.”
She urges journalists to be sceptical when handed a scoop on a silver platter; to question their source’s motive and verify the information.
While preparing for the interview for the ombud position she read findings by outgoing ombud, Johan Retief, and was impressed with his ruling on the series of South African Revenue Service “rogue unit” stories that this newspaper carried in 2014.
She says it was a low point, speculating that someone was pushing to have those stories published. “When someone is pushing, journalists need to slow down, back off and reconsider.”
Green has been in the news trenches and understands the stress of bringing out a newspaper and the pressure of breaking stories and front-page leads.
“People who accuse newspapers of sensationalism often don’t understand that imperative, but it’s still more important to be right than to have a good headline. Your credibility is long-term,” she says.
Right of reply
The press ombud has gained traction and more and more people are turning to the office each year. There were 533 complaints lodged last year, which is a tiny fraction of the vast daily production of news content, but still a lot of unhappy readers.
The council’s public advocate mediated the initial complaints and most were resolved before going to the ombud. About 25% required the ombud’s intervention.
There is still some confusion about what the press ombud can do. Retief was puzzled when he received an e-mail from a woman from Klerksdorp, asking him to make her neighbour’s dog stop barking. He thought perhaps it was because people had referred to him as a watchdog. He e-mailed back: “You are barking up the wrong tree.”
Out of the valid complaints, common ethical lapses include failure by journalists to give people the right of reply to accusations or failure to give them a reasonable opportunity to respond.
Green has been on both sides of these demands. “I don’t know what ‘reasonable’ is but I do know that journalists can’t phone someone 10 minutes before deadline for a comment on something quite complicated.
“It doesn’t hurt a story to give someone a right of reply. It often gives you new perspectives. The story is poorer for it when people don’t comment,” she says.
Green says the job is not about punishing newspapers; it’s about having a broad, common discussion about media ethics and how the industry governs itself.
“The media has done a huge amount in the last couple of years to expose the systemic corruption that has taken place. There have been incredible pockets of excellence in investigative reporting — the #GuptaLeaks have been extraordinary, but the media needs to build on that and go into the institutions of power, the courts and parliament, and do day-to-day reporting.”
She says the corruption is so deep the country is going to need a lot of good journalism to unearth it.
Protection for everyone
Green says the role of the ombud is to give people who have been the victims of erroneous reporting some form of protection and to help keep the media accountable.
“The ombud is not only for politicians and powerful people; it’s for everyone.
“There was a story in one of the tabloids with a headline about a teenager who died in a smokkelhuis [shebeen]. The young man’s mother brought a complaint and said the smokkelhuis reference besmirched his reputation; he was a good boy who had finished matric and volunteered in local charities and he was trying to intervene when someone was being attacked.”
The ombud, she says, is the interface between the public and the media and has to take very seriously the rights of those people who don’t have powerful voices.
She admits she’s nervous about the job. “I don’t think it will be easy. I ask myself: Am I the right person? Will I screw it up? Can I do it? But I’m buoyed by the fact that there are three very excellent judges — justice Yvonne Mokgoro, judge Phillip Levinsohn and judge Bernard Ngoepe — whom I can ask for advice on basic principles of justice and fairness: people of huge experience and integrity.”
Green knows her way around the media industry. She’s worked in print and broadcast and has trained journalists in newsrooms and in classrooms. She was the deputy editor of the Sunday Independent and Pretoria News and head of radio news at the public broadcaster and also served on the SABC board.
She wrote Choice, Not Fate: The life and times of Trevor Manuel and produced a fascinating series of podcasts reflecting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “Oh,” she adds, “and I worked at Cosmo.” In the early 1990s, Green was employed by the fashion magazine to write about women in the new SA. It was supposed to be a serious job, but one of her tasks was editing the beauty editor’s copy.
“The beauty editor wrote a story about a cream that will make your skin smooth and your wrinkles go away and, in good faith, I circled it all in red — those days we subbed on paper — and wrote, ‘Source?’ and sent it back to her. She was so confused.”