The captured media, fiddling their way to social irrelevance
I'm publishing (here and here) accounts of Groote Schuur Hospital and the Western Cape Health Department (WCHD) and especially my late mother's case (she was a patient) because local media won't.From November 2017 to January 2019 I sent CapeTalk, Sunday Times, Cape Argus, Die Burger and News24 and about three times each Daily Maverick, Groundup and Politicsweb information in article form. (Disclosure: until mid-2018 I was an occasional unpaid op-ed contributor to Politicsweb.)
In December 2017 I posted a letter on Groundup to an article about the general dysfunction of WCHD’s patient complaints system that its head Dr Beth Engelbrecht personally oversees. Inter alia, only she can refer complaints to the provincial Independent Health Complaints Committee which doesn't make it “independent”, a significant problem, and that at the time it had "logistical problems". (Also see here.)
A reporter contacted me asking for evidence because they wanted to do an article. I sent her from the source herself, Engelbrecht, to me. However, then editor Nathan Geffen emailed they couldn't run the story because of purported "dead lines" (it wasn't time sensitive). They asked me, remember. I was irritated at them wasting my time but thought nothing further of it.
A few months later they ran a similar story, this time the Treatment Action Campaign complained WCHD was not addressing patient complaints. When I reminded Groundup about the dysfunctional complaints system, they opaquely replied my comment was not "addressed" (sic), i.e. relevant, to them but TAC. If so, why run the story! They didn't publish my letters.
It was bullshit and sounded like they didn't want to do it, i.e. a cover up. I didn't understand – this was the kind of story in the community's interest they claim is their mission for which they receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Foundation. I've not read Groundup again.
I had a similar suspect response from Primedia CapeTalk's John Maytham about our tragic experience at Groote Schuur (effectively, illegal doctor-performed euthanasia) who said "it's not a story we do". Well, what kind of story do they do when mostly they fill hours of airtime with rubbish?
There was no response from other media, not even Daily Maverick when in July 2018 I wrote to the editor Branko Brkic (also see here) that their photoessay about GSH's Trauma Centre featured two doctors – unit head Prof. Andrew Nicol and Dr Mikhail Botha – implicated in my mother's death and there were complaints to the Health Professions Council of South Africa about them and others. I said their then "opinionista" (columnist) Premier Helen Zille was also involved for failing to investigate, and naturally they wouldn't publish a story that tarnishes her even if true.
Daily Maverick, another Soros recipient, which published the GuptaLeaks, presents itself as the country's leading alternative, and ethical, media outlet.
But I was most surprised with Politicsweb. Its editor and publisher James Myburgh admired my writing even before I wrote for him. He called my on spec, fact-based opinion pieces "excellent", "well-written" and "almost perfect". He published almost every one of the over 40 I sent him from 2016 to mid-2018 when he stopped for no reason.
We had a difficult patch in 2016, though, when he asked me to remove a sentence from my investigative analysis about South Africa's banking industry and high bank charges. It was not because it was inaccurate – the facts were already public and I had written the same words in a letter to the Cape Argus, which he didn't know – but because it might allegedly create perceptions among Politicsweb's enemies who "don't like what I'm doing" and would want to use it to "shut it down".
I thought his fear unfounded and paranoid and said so. I was offended he wanted me to self-censor. I refused, saying if he wanted it removed, he must do it himself. This led to an exchange of emails and a phone call where we patched up our differences. In the end he published the article as I originally wrote it. The sentence went unnoticed and the world went on as before. (A couple of times during the two years I wrote for Politicsweb there were elisions to the published article compared to what I wrote, like this one, that he didn't ask my permission for.)
Myburgh didn't respond, and didn't publish, my submissions about confirmed allegations of negligence and illegality at the hospital and health department. In August 2018 he rejected my article about the compromised National Prosecutions Authority without an offer for me to remedy it as he'd done on the rare – two or three – occasions when he had a query with my articles. It was allegedly because of one paragraph in an otherwise, according to him, "excellent as usual" piece which mentioned our recent experience with their bungled and compromised handling of our criminal complaints.
He implied it was potentially defamatory, although no names were mentioned, saying "people who know the story could identify individuals" Zille included, and he would get in trouble with the Press Council (he didn't say which clause in its code of conduct). It wasn't defamatory – the statements were true – or problematic in terms of the council's Code of Conduct (I checked).
A short while later he rejected, without telling me, an article about a completely different subject. I decided I wasn't going to submit anything again based on my informal rule of two consecutive rejections. A few months later I sent him a friendly note about the DA and politics I said wasn't for publication (no response). I don't recall, perhaps I mentioned my mother's case was ongoing to make a point.
But in comparison to my alleged infringement of the council's code, later (as it did before) Politicsweb published its columnist Andrew Donaldson, a Group Areas Act apologist, when he called the EFF "orcs" which is defamatory even if understood in a metaphorical sense. And provocative "right-wing" columnist and muckraker David Bullard where he boasted calling ANC member Tony Yengeni a "shit driver" and other insults on Twitter, which was offensive and unprofessional of both Bullard and Politicsweb.
There were other pieces, not deliberately outrageous like Bullard's, where Myburgh, Jeremy Gordin, Rian Malan and Gabriel Crouse presented tendentious and factually suspect conspiracy-laden theories to promote white victimhood and minority interests, e.g. the Coligny and Rodrigues prosecutions and convictions and farm murders (keyword search Politicsweb and "Coligny", "Rodrigues" and "farm murders").
They questioned prosecutors', judges' and the criminal justice system's integrity and competence with emotional-laden language like "scandalous", "false and laundered evidence" and "reckless". Their accusations have no basis in fact but it's not something they deem will get them into "trouble" with the Press Council, a wishy washy, masturbatory institution anyway.
Ironically, Bullard, Donaldson and Gordin (who excused Donaldson's apartheid faux pas) took offense at especially my criticism of them, proving purported humourists and "satirists", as they call themselves, can give it but can't take it.
So, double standards apply, or as I say, the media have none except when it suits themselves and to promote their own cause. Ironically, Politicsweb's motto since late 2018 is "fair but fearless" and "objective". But neither are in evidence.
This week I finally had enough. Politicsweb gave its usual excessive attention to the latest farm murder (and here, here, here, here, here, here and here). But relegated the national tragedy and disgrace of 1 000 women and child murders in one year to one article sourced from News24 to a minor space that ran for one day.
I must add this is typical of the hysterical local media which gives more attention to, say, alleged racial incidences than issues of substance. (Like the ANC/left-centred media does, EWN removed my innocuous comment to the latest such episode when I asked if it was news. It removes readers' comments, and bans them, that contradicts its black victimhood racial narrative.)
In fact, last week I had commented to Politicsweb's articles and in an email to WC Premier Alan Winde and agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer that women and child murders, and the country's high murder rate, are barely noticed. Except for NGOs, there's no concern and little to no media commentary, investigative articles or editorial by Politicsweb, etc. And no word from the DA-run Western Cape government, taxpayer-paid lobbyists for farmers that called farm murders a "crisis". Similarly, there's no equivalent concern about murdered black farm workers.
But it's a different story when only one white or white farmer is killed. White/farmer lobby group AfriForum still claims "farm murders are not receiving sufficient attention" (sic). The fact is no-one cares about poor blacks; they don't have the same value as whites.
There are small, human interest stories the media that claims to promote the public interest don’t bother with apparently because it’s either not topical, or as I suspect, they’re pursuing tendentious political agendas instead. Life Esidimeni may have started with a few individual cases the media ignored but hysterically and dishonestly went into overdrive when the extent of the tragedy became known. This is similar to Groundup ignoring a confirmed account of WCHD’s dysfunctional complaints system then a few months later posting an article about it but not wanting to credit they were informed months before.
There was no response from other media, not even Daily Maverick when in July 2018 I wrote to the editor Branko Brkic (also see here) that their photoessay about GSH's Trauma Centre featured two doctors – unit head Prof. Andrew Nicol and Dr Mikhail Botha – implicated in my mother's death and there were complaints to the Health Professions Council of South Africa about them and others. I said their then "opinionista" (columnist) Premier Helen Zille was also involved for failing to investigate, and naturally they wouldn't publish a story that tarnishes her even if true.
Daily Maverick, another Soros recipient, which published the GuptaLeaks, presents itself as the country's leading alternative, and ethical, media outlet.
But I was most surprised with Politicsweb. Its editor and publisher James Myburgh admired my writing even before I wrote for him. He called my on spec, fact-based opinion pieces "excellent", "well-written" and "almost perfect". He published almost every one of the over 40 I sent him from 2016 to mid-2018 when he stopped for no reason.
We had a difficult patch in 2016, though, when he asked me to remove a sentence from my investigative analysis about South Africa's banking industry and high bank charges. It was not because it was inaccurate – the facts were already public and I had written the same words in a letter to the Cape Argus, which he didn't know – but because it might allegedly create perceptions among Politicsweb's enemies who "don't like what I'm doing" and would want to use it to "shut it down".
I thought his fear unfounded and paranoid and said so. I was offended he wanted me to self-censor. I refused, saying if he wanted it removed, he must do it himself. This led to an exchange of emails and a phone call where we patched up our differences. In the end he published the article as I originally wrote it. The sentence went unnoticed and the world went on as before. (A couple of times during the two years I wrote for Politicsweb there were elisions to the published article compared to what I wrote, like this one, that he didn't ask my permission for.)
Myburgh didn't respond, and didn't publish, my submissions about confirmed allegations of negligence and illegality at the hospital and health department. In August 2018 he rejected my article about the compromised National Prosecutions Authority without an offer for me to remedy it as he'd done on the rare – two or three – occasions when he had a query with my articles. It was allegedly because of one paragraph in an otherwise, according to him, "excellent as usual" piece which mentioned our recent experience with their bungled and compromised handling of our criminal complaints.
He implied it was potentially defamatory, although no names were mentioned, saying "people who know the story could identify individuals" Zille included, and he would get in trouble with the Press Council (he didn't say which clause in its code of conduct). It wasn't defamatory – the statements were true – or problematic in terms of the council's Code of Conduct (I checked).
A short while later he rejected, without telling me, an article about a completely different subject. I decided I wasn't going to submit anything again based on my informal rule of two consecutive rejections. A few months later I sent him a friendly note about the DA and politics I said wasn't for publication (no response). I don't recall, perhaps I mentioned my mother's case was ongoing to make a point.
But in comparison to my alleged infringement of the council's code, later (as it did before) Politicsweb published its columnist Andrew Donaldson, a Group Areas Act apologist, when he called the EFF "orcs" which is defamatory even if understood in a metaphorical sense. And provocative "right-wing" columnist and muckraker David Bullard where he boasted calling ANC member Tony Yengeni a "shit driver" and other insults on Twitter, which was offensive and unprofessional of both Bullard and Politicsweb.
There were other pieces, not deliberately outrageous like Bullard's, where Myburgh, Jeremy Gordin, Rian Malan and Gabriel Crouse presented tendentious and factually suspect conspiracy-laden theories to promote white victimhood and minority interests, e.g. the Coligny and Rodrigues prosecutions and convictions and farm murders (keyword search Politicsweb and "Coligny", "Rodrigues" and "farm murders").
They questioned prosecutors', judges' and the criminal justice system's integrity and competence with emotional-laden language like "scandalous", "false and laundered evidence" and "reckless". Their accusations have no basis in fact but it's not something they deem will get them into "trouble" with the Press Council, a wishy washy, masturbatory institution anyway.
Ironically, Bullard, Donaldson and Gordin (who excused Donaldson's apartheid faux pas) took offense at especially my criticism of them, proving purported humourists and "satirists", as they call themselves, can give it but can't take it.
So, double standards apply, or as I say, the media have none except when it suits themselves and to promote their own cause. Ironically, Politicsweb's motto since late 2018 is "fair but fearless" and "objective". But neither are in evidence.
This week I finally had enough. Politicsweb gave its usual excessive attention to the latest farm murder (and here, here, here, here, here, here and here). But relegated the national tragedy and disgrace of 1 000 women and child murders in one year to one article sourced from News24 to a minor space that ran for one day.
I must add this is typical of the hysterical local media which gives more attention to, say, alleged racial incidences than issues of substance. (Like the ANC/left-centred media does, EWN removed my innocuous comment to the latest such episode when I asked if it was news. It removes readers' comments, and bans them, that contradicts its black victimhood racial narrative.)
In fact, last week I had commented to Politicsweb's articles and in an email to WC Premier Alan Winde and agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer that women and child murders, and the country's high murder rate, are barely noticed. Except for NGOs, there's no concern and little to no media commentary, investigative articles or editorial by Politicsweb, etc. And no word from the DA-run Western Cape government, taxpayer-paid lobbyists for farmers that called farm murders a "crisis". Similarly, there's no equivalent concern about murdered black farm workers.
But it's a different story when only one white or white farmer is killed. White/farmer lobby group AfriForum still claims "farm murders are not receiving sufficient attention" (sic). The fact is no-one cares about poor blacks; they don't have the same value as whites.
There are small, human interest stories the media that claims to promote the public interest don’t bother with apparently because it’s either not topical, or as I suspect, they’re pursuing tendentious political agendas instead. Life Esidimeni may have started with a few individual cases the media ignored but hysterically and dishonestly went into overdrive when the extent of the tragedy became known. This is similar to Groundup ignoring a confirmed account of WCHD’s dysfunctional complaints system then a few months later posting an article about it but not wanting to credit they were informed months before.
Assuming it had an inkling, what was the media’s role in ignoring Esidimeni at the time it happened? While I'm aware there's an element of self-interest in wanting my mother's case and our dispute with WCHD published because it puts pressure on them and authorities, why has the media refused to touch it? It's not as if they don't publish stories about medical maladies, e.g. the one last week of a patient hand-cuffed to a bench.
My mother's case has all the hallmarks of a good story: medical malpractice, corruption, cover ups, police investigations and their and NPA's ineptitude and political capture, Helen Zille, etc. The activist in me wants the defects in the province's public health system and governance made public and addressed, which TAC and others in their way are also doing.
However, I suspect the she-elephant in the room that made them reluctant: Zille. She's the media darling; the oracle, omniscient who cannot be challenged or disputed. She was a featured Daily Maverick writer with a weekly column "From the Inside" (it no longer appears, I guess since her use expired now she's an outsider, a has been), and Politicsweb and its writers and commentators adored her. Even out of office, she can do no wrong.
Even if the other media groups – Primedia, Tiso, Independent and Media24 who own the titles I mentioned at the start – don't feel the same way about her, they still respect, even revere, her and would be reluctant to publish anything even if supported by evidence that alleges corruption and illegality by her and in her former administration as they did with her regulatory capture of CapeNature at the behest of and to benefit the Western Cape's agri-industry, reportedly significant DA donors.
I accept that with allegations of criminality and unprofessional conduct publishers must tread carefully. But as I said, evidence is available. Anyway, lack of evidence hasn't stopped them making allegations and writing fake news with little to no repercussions.
My mother's case has all the hallmarks of a good story: medical malpractice, corruption, cover ups, police investigations and their and NPA's ineptitude and political capture, Helen Zille, etc. The activist in me wants the defects in the province's public health system and governance made public and addressed, which TAC and others in their way are also doing.
However, I suspect the she-elephant in the room that made them reluctant: Zille. She's the media darling; the oracle, omniscient who cannot be challenged or disputed. She was a featured Daily Maverick writer with a weekly column "From the Inside" (it no longer appears, I guess since her use expired now she's an outsider, a has been), and Politicsweb and its writers and commentators adored her. Even out of office, she can do no wrong.
Even if the other media groups – Primedia, Tiso, Independent and Media24 who own the titles I mentioned at the start – don't feel the same way about her, they still respect, even revere, her and would be reluctant to publish anything even if supported by evidence that alleges corruption and illegality by her and in her former administration as they did with her regulatory capture of CapeNature at the behest of and to benefit the Western Cape's agri-industry, reportedly significant DA donors.
I accept that with allegations of criminality and unprofessional conduct publishers must tread carefully. But as I said, evidence is available. Anyway, lack of evidence hasn't stopped them making allegations and writing fake news with little to no repercussions.
In 2017 the Cape Times' editor told me one shouldn't use the media to fight personal battles. This was after, at his invitation, I submitted a part investigative, fact-based op-ed about the problematic planning approval system of the City of Cape Town that favours developers, their self-described “red-carpet approach”.
But literally overnight, he got frosty for no reason. The only thing that could have changed was in an email after I sent the draft I said a well-known business, not mentioned by name in the article, was implicated in my case study. Either that or then mayco for development Brett Herron to whom he sent my piece for comment told him something untrue about me that put him off (I don’t know what that might have been, though, as I had evidence from the city to support my allegations). I never read the group’s papers again.
People use the media, especially politicians and the media themselves, to fight personal battles and get back at enemies. The public writes to or calls them about problems affecting their communities or just to complain. That's what they're there for. But when they deem otherwise, stories are ignored often because they lack the inclination to do so. They are motivated by considerations beyond the story, certainly beyond the press code’s primary principle of freedom of speech and in the public interest.
Because of their political agenda-driven narratives, there is now no South African media I regularly read. Their credibility is low. They're fiddling their way into social irrelevance.
Because of their political agenda-driven narratives, there is now no South African media I regularly read. Their credibility is low. They're fiddling their way into social irrelevance.
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