CAPE TOWN — If you think our law enforcement agencies are politically directed, sometimes actively pursuing a Zuptoid agenda, how about the media? Ed Herbst, an undeniable campaigner for cleaning up journalism and especially that most influential medium, television, takes us on an eye-opening historical walk through signal events that have led to what some call the State Capture of the media. Pointing to the blatant propagandistic support of the Zuptoid machine by ANN7 Television and its other Gupta-owned arm, the New Age, Herbst cites editorial firings and hirings to illustrate similar ideological capture of Independent News Media by millionaire businessman, Dr Iqbal Survé. Capture via no less than the purchase of Independent Newspapers using a billion rand of civil servant pension funds, “loaned’’ to Survé by government friends. Herbst cites incisive coverage of the infamous check-in, check-out former CEO of Eskom, Brian Molefe, which resulted in Survé firing Sunday Independent editor Wally Mbhele. Mbhele is the sixth editor to leave Surve’s employ. Survé’s editors toe the line or face joining their erstwhile colleagues. Do look out for Herbst’s description of Brian Molefe – it’s a journalistic classic. – Chris Bateman
By Ed Herbst*
‘The slime just keeps pouring out of the Zupta sewer’.
Peter Bruce Business Day 5/7/2016
Brian Molefe is a deeply-compromised, paternalistic churl to whom the concepts of couth and courtesy are alien.
If you doubt that then read Francis Herd’s account on Daily Maverick about how Molefe tried, with the help of the equally compromised Faith Muthambi, to intimidate her after she aired well-founded allegations of corruption that were beginning to surface in the public domain.
To the Snouting Faction of the African National Congress however, deployed cadre Molefe represents the hope of untrammelled access to a commodity valued more highly than the ancients valued gold, frankincense and myrrh – tenders.
Every effort must thus be made to protect him and, in pursuit of this goal, the necessary media steps must be taken.
The support of the Gupta Sewer’s ANN7 television channel and its newspaper, the New Age is a given in this regard.
But are we not seeing the same process unfold at Dr Iqbal Survé’s Independent News Media company, the largest group of English newspapers in the country which was purchased in part by more than a billion rand belonging to civil servant pensioners?
Let me provide a timeline and you can decide if the dots connect in any way.
There was public outrage at the way in which the ANC gerrymandered the transition of Cryin’ Brian, the Sobbing Sage of the Saxonwold Shebeen, from Eskom to the parliamentary benches of the ANC.
On Sunday 19 February, the Sunday Independent – editor Wally Mbhele – published an excellent example of investigative journalism in this regard by reporters Baldwin Ndaba and Siyabonga Mkhwanazi. The article was headlined Brian Molefe ‘snuck in the back door’.
For this, Mbhele was dismissed becoming the sixth editor in little more than three years to leave the employ of Dr Iqbal Survé and the second after Alide Dasnois, to be dismissed for arousing the ire of the mercurial Dr Survé.
(I am unaware of any Naspers editor ever having been dismissed and this is important in a local media context because Dr Dan Matjila, CEO of the Public Investment Corporation, said his motivation in facilitating the financing of the Sekunjalo takeover of the Indy newspapers was to create ‘a Naspers for black people’)
Let me try and create some possibly-relevant context here using the SABC as a case study to sketch the dilemma now facing Indy editors and the current crop of SABC enforcers.
On 14 June 2005 Business Day carried an article by its then political editor, Jacob Dlamini and it outlined the dilemma of Snuki Zikalala who had abused his position as the head of news at the SABC to promote the Mbeki faction and to deny his political rival, Jacob Zuma, broadcast coverage.
However the tide within the ANC and in the country as a whole was turning against Mbeki. Now that the tide is turning against Zuma, the similarities between what happened to Zikalala then and the current ANC- supporting media now controlled by the Guptas and Survé, are compelling.
ANC at SABC also still studying Shaik judgment
Jacob Dlamini
WHAT on earth is going on at the Auckland Park branch of the African National Congress (ANC), otherwise known as the SABC newsroom?
Not only is the, er, public broadcaster haemorrhaging staff, it also seems to be at a loss about what to do about the Jacob Zuma saga, the most important story in post-apartheid SA.
Could it be that SABC news commissar Snuki Zikalala is, like his principals in the ANC, at a loss over what to do about Zuma?
Since the verdict and sentence were announced in the Schabir Shaik trial more than two weeks ago, the ANC has issued two bland statements on the matter.
The first statement said the party had “noted” the judgment and was studying it. The second said the party had, er, “noted” the judgment and was studying it.
The ANC statements might seem banal but they amount to ANC-speak for “we don’t know what to do”. This is not surprising.
The Shaik judgment and Judge Hilary Squires’ indictment of Deputy President Zuma’s “generally corrupt relationship” with Shaik, his financial adviser, have split the ANC.
People are siding with either Zuma or President Thabo Mbeki and the organisation finds it difficult to speak with one voice on the issue. There is seemingly no one out there to give the party line. Hence the SABC’s tentative approach.
With no one to give him the party line, Zikalala is hedging his bets and sitting on the fence, lest he be accused by one of the many factions in the ANC of siding with either Zuma or Mbeki. He cannot risk that. He will probably wait to see which way the wind blows on the Zuma saga before he adopts the triumphant party line. That is how state broadcasters function.
That is what SABC News has become under Zikalala. But spare a thought for the poor man. It cannot be easy being a news commissar, especially when the party from which you take your cue is so divided and the levels of mistrust are so high.
You can’t talk to ANC people in government or the ANC itself without their checking whether your phone is “safe” or bugged.
It must be very difficult in a situation like that to come up with a party line. By their nature, party lines work when members of collectives hold on to them and believe them. They have to believe them so they can sound convincing when they repeat them to the world or to those who do not subscribe to a party line.
As news commissar, Zikalala determines the SABC’s line on stories. But he is also a party hack who must, as per his deployment by an ANC-dominated SABC board, push the party line at the SABC. This deployment business works on the assumption that there is a party line to push. But the model crashes when a party is so divided there is no obvious line. That is Zikalala’s dilemma.
How does one stay on top of the country’s biggest political story if one does not have a party line to guide one? How does one report on a story that has serious adverse implications for the ANC? What type of ANC is likely to emerge from this morass and how does one cover that?
These are questions journalists around the country are asking themselves at the moment. But they take on a particular currency when posed by a party hack who seemingly cannot take orders from his party because it does not know what to do.
Speak to senior ANC leaders and they will tell you that the Zuma affair is the most serious crisis the ANC has ever had to deal with. And this is a party that has had its share of troubles: from mutinies in its camps, defections from its ranks, infiltration by apartheid agents, leadership squabbles here and in exile, to the assassination of its leaders.
But none of these issues had as much potential to split the ANC down the middle as does the Zuma saga.
People are lining up on either side, campaigning and hoping their side will come out on top. You obviously do not want to back the wrong camp, because you might lose.
For individuals like Zikalala, who owe their well-paid jobs to political patronage, that could mean a loss of that job and whatever political access it gives them. Zikalala has been booted out of the SABC before. He would hate to see it happen again.
That is why the news coming out of Auckland Park on the Zuma saga is likely to be as bland as you will ever see. The public broadcaster, which acts like an ANC trumpet, is unlikely to tell us anything dramatic about the Zuma affair. Like the ANC itself, the Auckland Park branch of the ANC has, I suspect, noted the judgment and is studying it. It is likely to study it for as long as it takes the ANC to regroup and speak with one voice again. Only then will Zikalala know what the party line is … again.
Dlamini is political editor.
Zikalala tried the ANC’s usual intimidating tactic of threatening legal action against Business Day but then editor Peter Bruce stared him down, published the letter from Snuki’s lawyers and, predictably, nothing further was heard.
Bruce and Dlamini were vindicated by a subsequent and damning High Court ruling by Judge Neels Claassen in the North Gauteng High Court on 24 January 2011 but the ANC-supporting media now faces the same dilemma that Zikalala faced in 2005 – which faction of the ANC must it favour. Pro or anti-Zuma and his patronage enclave?
The dismissal of Wally Mbhele sends an unequivocal message to his former editor colleagues and we are already seeing signs of how they are reacting to a very clear signal in this regard.
That subject will form the second half of this article.
- Ed Herbst is a retired veteran journalist who writes in his own capacity.
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