Media Monday Bulletin

Posted: 24 January 2011 | News - Newsletter | Categories: Children, Democracy and Governance, Media Freedom and Performance

It has not been a great start to the week or to the year for media in many ways – so forgive us if there are a few grumbles and groans in today’s Media Monday bulletin. We’re not aiming so much for a rant, as a clearing of the air, a raising of awareness, and a plea for everyone: journalists, editors, politicians, board members and the rest, to do better! Come on people, let’s set the bar a little higher for 2011… pretty please!!

What’s hot and what’s not this Media Monday?

Media tramples all over children’s rights

The multi-billion rand mis-spending story – and how it’s been treated in the press

Solly’s SABC settlement – it fell to the Minister to lift the veil of secrecy

And meet a self-confessed “media freak” – our newest MMC

SA Press is failing our children

Children’s rights have been violated left right and centre since the start of 2011 - we have vulnerable children exploited to score cheap political points, vulnerable children being interviewed and made to relive traumatic experiences just days after they have occurred, newspapers making a mockery of legislation protecting children, child victims of abuse being paraded in front of the cameras, and missing children labeled as thieves.

Sounds a bit extreme doesn’t it??!! But since the first of January, there have been multiple examples of this kind of reporting in our newspapers, and we can give you a few examples. The public editor of Avusa Thabo Leshilo felt it necessary to chastise Avusa newspaper Sowetan for their complete failure to conceal the identity of a child whose father had been accused of rape. The story, which you’re probably familiar with, involved an actor. Sowetan, in its story “Actor ‘abused’ kid,” (05/01/2010, p.4) said it could not identify the actor, as it would indirectly identify the child but then went on to give so many clues as to the actor’s identity that as Thabo Leshilo described “the newspaper might as well have splashed his name and face on the front page”

In the last two weeks the numbers of stories published by Daily Sun that clearly and unambiguously were not in the children’s best interests went into double digits.

One example is “Army Dad goes mad” (Daily Sun, 17/01/2011, p.5) where Daily Sun identified and interviewed a boy who three days before had witnessed his father killing his grandmother and aunt, before killing himself. The ten year old boy was quoted as saying “my dad replied by shooting my grandmother in the head.” Surely witnessing a trauma is bad enough, but making a 10 year old relive it for juicy tabloid quotes is beyond insensitive, it is irresponsible.

And call us a tincy weency bit cynical but from troubling The New Age reports it appears that in the world of politics the more vulnerable the child is the better in the race to win votes. Take for example “Bakkie kills girl two days into school” (The New Age, 17,01,2010, p.25). Not only did it identify a child who was a witness to a crime, and so should have been protected, but most of the article – and indeed the picture that accompanied it – was taken up by MEC Magome Masike who visited the girl, commended government’s response, and made an appeal to motorists. Now we’re not saying that The New Age just republished a political press statement, it’s just that large sections of the article read very like one. Oh and the North West Provincial government seemed to be credited for providing the photograph… ahem!

These are just three examples of a depressingly long list – if you want some more check out MMA’s MADs and GLADs highlighting the best and worst practice when it comes to reporting on children – although as you might have guessed recently the MADs have been dominating.

Is mis-spending billions news??

R4billion rand blown on irregular expenditure.

93% of Mpumalanga’s education budget – R134 million – spent on irregular expenditure

Eastern Cape alone squandered R2billion of its health and education budgets.

Where did these figures come from? Not from Wikileaks, not from a whistle blower inside the department… nope, from the Auditor General’s report. However on the day the story broke it was not front page news. We picked it up on pg 14 of Sowetan (“A-G paints bleak picture of provinces” 20/01/2011, p.14). Across the corridor in Avusa, The Times ran the positive story “W Cape is the best-governed province: AG” with no mention of the irregular spending figures. We may stand corrected but we didn’t see it anywhere else, until Mail & Guardian picked it up the next day, on page 14 “ R4 billion wasted – and that’s official” (21/01/2010).

In July last year Blade Nzimande’s R40 675 stay at the Mount Nelson hotel was front page news. Now we’re not saying that that wasn’t news worthy, but if that merited front page coverage – why not R4billion of taxpayers money wasted??

And its not like the health and education departments – whose budgets were most keenly effected, don’t need the cash. Take for example Eastern Cape where transport for 100,000 pupils from poorer schools has been suspended due to the department’s “financial constraints”. 6,000 temporary teachers were also let go in from schools there. This in a province where R2billion from education and health budgets was lost to “irregular expenditure” The figures are there, they’re official, lets read more about the whys and what this means!

What Solly got paid and how we found out!

So last week suspended SABC CEO Solly Mokoetle resigned having agreed a settlement. And of course we all wanted to know what kind of settlement – or more importantly how much of a settlement the ex Chief Exec was being given by the public service broadcaster.

However the board was tight lipped – simply saying it wasn’t a golden handshake. Well that failed to sate our curiosity, and the figures being banded about ranged from R3million to R30 million (that one came from The New Age).

On Friday Minister for Communications Roy Padayachie met with the board and it was he who applied the pressure that led the board to issue its statement that “in the interests of full transparency and to put an end to negative and incorrect media reports that the Board has decided to make the disclosure” that Mr Mokoetle was paid R3.4 million.

We have to wonder though at a state of affairs where it’s up to a Minister to press for “transparency” and “full disclosure.” It’s a testament to Mr Padayachie that he did. However the level of transparency at the public service broadcaster should not be up to the personality of the Minister of the day. Surely it’s the board’s job to ensure everything is fair AND transparent. Given SABC’s troubled recent corporate governance history and previous “golden handshakes” of R13million, it’s not reasonable to ask the public to simply “trust” them.

And finally, let us introduce our newest MMC

He’s a blogger, a tweeter and a self confessed media freak! Introducing Akanyang Merementsi, our 8th Media Matters Commentator. His posts and tweets keep us on our toes and contribute to interesting discussions on all sorts of media issues! Oh and he’s turning 25 on Wednesday!

We’d love to hear your views or comments on these or any media stories.

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