Cue violins for Iqbal Survé
Alide Dasnois and Chris Whitfield, two editors who became collateral damage in Iqbal Survé’s war on journalistic integrity, have written a book detailing the rise and fall of a monumental ego. This is an exclusive extract from Paper Tiger, published today
Two editors who became collateral damage in Iqbal Survé’s war on journalistic integrity have written a book detailing the rise and fall of a monumental ego.
In Paper Tiger, Alide Dasnois and Chris Whitfield describe how Survé regularly told staff at Independent Newspapers grandstanding stories about his success and his friendships with famous people.
At one “town hall” address to staff in Cape Town, violinists were hired to play rousing tunes as he entered the darkened room under a spotlight. During the address, he listed among his achievements being Nelson Mandela’s doctor.
Staff at Independent Newspapers quickly learnt that Iqbal Survé was not averse to sharing stories about his own success and the ingredients that went into it — what he called his “deeply grounded” ethical principles and a process of “ethical decision making”. He also claimed to have an astonishing network of associates, including an array of world-famous celebrities. Sadly, not everyone believed him. For most of the Cape Town staff their first taste came late in the afternoon of December 5 2013. The Vineyard lekgotla had adjourned for the day so that participants could return to Newspaper House where Survé was to give a “town hall” address to all Cape Town staff. They gathered in a conference room on the ground floor of the building, where a group of violinists had been assembled to play some rousing tunes as Survé entered the darkened room. A spotlight shone on him as he took his
Staff learned that their new owner had been Mandela’s doctor, that he had served as ‘mind coach’ to the national soccer team, had helped a world-famous Indian cricketer refine his batsmanship, and more
place on the podium.
The employees listened for more than an hour as he promised them a new era. Once again, he was long on personal detail. Staff learnt that their new owner had been Mandela’s doctor, that he had served as “mind coach” to the national soccer team, had helped a world-famous Indian cricketer refine his batsmanship, and more.
He said he was affectionately known as the “struggle doctor” and dwelt at some length on his relationship with Nelson Mandela. Then he claimed: “[Mandela] said to me, just before he got ill, ‘Iqbal, are you still the same?’ I said to him: ‘Tata, I am still the same.’ He said: ‘Now I can go.’ ”
An editor’s fond hope quickly dashed
Alide Dasnois could not have been more mistaken when she wrote in the Cape Times of December 6 2013 — the day of that fateful meeting with Survé at the Vineyard Hotel — that any concerns among readers that the newspaper might “become a vehicle for the expression of the corporate
interests of the Sekunjalo Group … are unfounded”.
In the weeks and months that followed, the Cape Times and other Independent titles sprouted stories about the new owner, his companies and his business friends like buds in spring. A pattern soon became apparent — none of the many controversies he was involved in were covered, and he was given carte blanche by his editors to respond to anything and everything. Some of them, like Business Report editor Adri Senekal de Wet, lost no opportunity to defend and praise him.
It was Senekal de Wet, a former Sekunjalo stakeholder relations executive, who wrote a memorable “open letter” to Survé in July 2016 in response to the article by Terry Bell in which he gave his findings after fact-checking Survé’s CV and his many extraordinary claims. Presenting herself as a “white, Afrikaans-speaking woman, a single mother of four beautiful daughters”, and without actually contradicting anything Bell had written, Senekal de Wet waxed lyrical about the pleasures of working with “Doc Survé” and expressed her sadness, disgust and frustration at the articles that had appeared about him in Media24.
“Dr Survé, when I read the latest articles about you, I have to ask myself, why aren’t you reacting? This is ridiculous! How can ANYBODY question YOU? Honestly, Doc, I ask myself, are they mad, jealous or simply stupid.” She said she had seen “many photographs with you and Madiba” in Survé’s home, as well as “notes and books signed by Madiba to you”.
As regards Bell’s dismissal of Survé’s claim to have been mentored by struggle hero Ahmed Kathrada, Senekal de Wet said Survé’s children called Kathrada “Uncle Kathy”, and she knew Survé had hosted dinner or lunches with Kathrada at his house, playfully wondering why she herself had not been invited.
She said when she had asked Survé why he had not requested Kathrada himself to put Bell in his place, Survé replied: “Why should I dignify such nonsense by asking Kathy to respond? He has struggled enough having spent 27 years in prison. My struggle with these detractors is nothing compared to Kathy and Madiba’s suffering … There is no need to drag him or anyone else in to satisfy the Verwoerdian lust of a journalist.”
The absurdity of accusing Bell — an activist who had been jailed and gone into exile in the apartheid years, who was the first principal of the primary division of the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College school in Tanzania for the children of ANC and Umkhonto weSizwe operatives, who had spent his career as a journalist reporting on the struggles of workers, and who had won the Nat Nakasa journalism award in 2010 — of “Verwoerdian lust” apparently did not register with Senekal de Wet. On the contrary. “Doc, I respect you for that,” she wrote. “Most people would have asked Mr Kathrada to admonish the journalist …
“Not you. You always remain dignified and put others first. That is why I knew you were different and special, walking into the office of Rapport many years ago — you had, and still have, the Madiba touch.”
Wondering why such a special and different person would be the subject of attacks, she came to the conclusion that “the Afrikaners” — presumably a reference to the owners of Media24 — “will battle to tolerate … a black man that stands independent, after many years of owning the majority of the print media”.
“Doc, it is only because you have an impact, I am convinced, that they need to do this to you!”
Finally, she listed some of his many philanthropic activities through the Survé Family Foundation, his work on women’s and youth empowerment, his sacrifice of R4m in salary and bonuses to pay the salaries of employees facing retrenchment at
Sekunjalo, his journey from childhood poverty to success, and even his regular visits to his mother on Fridays. “Doc, they can never destroy you in our mind: You remain our hero and inspiration!
“Don’t give up. I salute you! And my offer: It will be an honour to be part of your journey, and if I could, I will do it for free!”
Her “offer” was accepted: just three months later, in October 2016, Senekal de Wet was indeed to become part of Survé’s journey, when she was appointed editor of Business Report, though not, presumably, for free.
But though she was the most spirited of his praisesingers, she was by no means the only one. Cape
Times editor Aneez Salie was also enthusiastic in his praise. In a published interview with Gasant Abarder in March 2016, he suggested that in buying Independent Newspapers, Survé had liberated black journalists “for a second time” — a claim that was to prompt a scathing response from the former Cape Times writer Dougie Oakes. “It is high time,” Oakes wrote in December 2018, “that the ridiculous assertion be buried that Iqbal Survé helped to liberate black media workers of Independent Media ‘twice’, following his acquisition of the group from its previous Irish owners, together with all the other bullshit stories that have wafted through Newspaper House over the past few years.
“According to the Cape Times editor, Aneez Salie, who sings this praise song whenever he is given the opportunity to do so, Survé did more than his bit in ushering in democracy in SA. But more than that, he also, almost single-handedly, transformed Independent Media into a group promoting the interests of the majority of SA’s population. It’s laughable,” wrote Oakes.
A quick count of mentions on the Independent Online website shows that over the next five years Survé was to appear, often with photographs, at least 350 times in his newspapers: an average of 70 times a year, or about once every five days.
Events in which he was involved, from the World Economic Forum to Brics to the “Saudi Arabia-SA Business Council”, made the news, often on the front page. Survé’s every step at the World Economic
Forum was also faithfully recorded by his editors, who interviewed him time and time again on everything from the world economy to SA’s prospects to the successes of his various companies and the evil antics of his competitors. Sometimes the headlines seemed better suited to religious figures. Thus, on February 13 2014, in a report co-authored by then Business Report editor Ellis Mnyandu, readers met “The man who wants to change the world”.
Readers of the Cape Times photo supplement Society were regularly regaled with pictures of Survé and various members of his family out and about in town. By late 2018, the proliferation of photographs of Survé prompted CapeTalk radio host Kieno Kammies to hold a mock “competition” between the Cape
Argus and the Cape Times to see which title could post the most pictures of the owner. Even activity by Survé’s cronies made headline news, as when his Twitter praise-singer Chelsea Lotz, formerly of the Media Transformation Movement of SA, launched an India-SA business association.
Meanwhile, Sekunjalo Independent Media’s Chinese investors were rewarded with numerous articles including, in October 2017, front-page leads about the 19th congress of the Communist Party of China, written by special envoy Gasant Abarder.
And critical pieces about the Chinese government were not welcomed, as Azad Essa, who wrote a foreign affairs column for the group, discovered. Essa focused a September 2018 column on the more than 1-million Uyghur Muslims held by the Chinese authorities in internment camps. He explained later that he was fully aware of the stakes held by China International Television Corp and the China-Africa Development Fund in Independent Media and knew “that the column might ruffle feathers”.
The piece was published in print in Independent’s newspapers around the country. But when Essa asked when it would be published online, he was told by e-mail that a decision had been taken not to publish it electronically. “When I asked for clarity from online editors, I received no response.
“This morning my weekly column was cancelled. I was told the following: ‘With the redesign of our papers and the new system, there are changes regarding the columnists being used.’
“Is this the future of corporate censorship in SA?” asked Essa. Public Investment Corporation head Dan Matjila, later to be questioned during a public hearing about his investment decisions, including the purchase of the stake in Independent, was much favoured by its newspapers, sometimes in very random stories. For example: “Dr Solomon de Jager, president of the PiLOS group, invites PIC CEO to Master Quality Solutions Conference”, Business Report announced to readers in September 2017.
In the way they defended their owner and attacked his detractors, Survé’s newspapers became a battle zone. On one side were ranged the good guys, Survé himself and the companies in which he was involved — Siemens, Ayo Technologies, Sagarmatha, Premier Fishing — on the other, the bad guys, especially Tiso Blackstar. “Not a week goes by without positive news about the proprietor and attacks on rival media,” says Moshoeshoe Monare, the former editor of the Sunday Independent. “It’s sad. A shame.”
In his op-ed piece on December 4 2013, shortly after taking over the Independent group, Survé had promised readers of his newspapers that, although he himself retained “friendships, alliances and loyalties with many who are in senior positions in the ANC today … the newspaper group which I now lead will remain what it has always been, a place where all world views, ideas and political schools are welcome”. That this was not really to be the case soon became evident. It was made very clear to editors where their political allegiances were supposed to lie. Veteran journalist Dougie Oakes was recruited as a special writer by the Cape Times soon after Survé took control. After a falling out with a senior staff member, he was transferred to the company’s politics division. “In the first few weeks in my new position, Survé called me virtually every day with ‘suggestions’ of who to interview: Brian Molefe, Kebby Maphatsoe and Carl Niehaus [all allies of president Jacob Zuma] were among the political glitterati he thought should appear in Indy newspapers,” he recalled in a blog written in October 2018, after he had resigned and left the company. “With most of the people he suggested being soaked in scandal, I said: ‘Thanks, I’ll think about it,’ and never did.”
Oakes added: “When the Gupta Tapes story broke, Independent Media was left high and dry — out of the loop. We were told we had been ignored because it was felt we ‘could not be trusted’. And I think our sources were correct in this respect.
“Just before the important ANC conferences at the end of 2017, Survé sent out an instruction to all the editors ‘not to take sides’,” said Oakes. “But by this time he had already appointed a Zuma acolyte, Steve Motale, as editor of the Sunday Independent. Motale quickly showed his true colours, carrying a front-page story about marital infidelity which was designed to inflict maximum damage to Cyril Ramaphosa’s chances of becoming the next ANC president.
“Significantly … prior to the ANC’s elective conference, when the race between Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was regarded as neck-andneck, Survé also invited Dlamini-Zuma to Independent Media’s offices in Cape Town for a chat. All editors were instructed to attend,” said Oakes.
Former Mercury editor Philani Mgwaba says the Independent newspapers “are no longer about their readers, but the powerful in politics and business”. He describes them now as “a complete wreck … I used to subscribe to two of the titles in KwaZulu-Natal, The Mercury and the Sunday Tribune, but have cancelled my subscriptions in sheer frustration. As a reader, I felt the inordinate amount of space used to shamelessly promote and flatter Survé’s ego and personal interests and those of a coterie of political and businesspeople in the Durban area was an outrage I couldn’t stand. It’s been an unmitigated disaster. It’s just so sad to see what used to be a relatively well-run and credible newspaper company fall apart in the manner that Independent has.”
“Survé’s problem is his ego — and his loyalty to those who stroke it for him,” wrote Oakes in his October 2018 blog. “No-one can tell him anything because he believes he knows everything.”
On February 12 2018 Business Report set another new standard by wishing Survé happy birthday on the front page of the section, in a space usually reserved for Eid, Christmas or Passover greetings to readers, and accompanying the wishes with his photo.
‘When the Gupta Tapes story broke, Independent Media was left high and dry – out of the loop. We were told we had been ignored because it was felt we “could not be trusted”. And I think our sources were correct in this respect’
Dougie Oakes Veteran journalist