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Journalists are not there to bring down legitimate governments whether at local level or at any other level on behalf of factions or opposition parties on the promise of jobs |
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It seems jobs were promised to someone if they could help bring Nomaindia Mfeketo down. One of the key issues which Ivan Flynn must insist on Joseph Aranes and Ashley Smith telling his internal investigation is the identity of the thieves who stole information of both business and personal nature in the possession of the two "well-known" Argus reporters. This will show the public the actual architects of the plot to unseat Mfeketo.
It is important for Flynn to uncover this because it is the most serious accusation against the two reporters: that they were knowingly part of a plot to create instability in the city's governance on behalf of unknown persons as indicated by their keeping secret information stolen from the offices of the executive mayor.
Recently famous Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward got into trouble for failing to tell his boss at the Washington Post the identity of the anonymous source who told him about Valerie Wilson the woman named over information leaks on the Iraq war.
Flynn get information about the theft from the mayors office in the interests of democracy, transparency and integrity.
The net should close also on Elliot Sylvester and the Independent Newspapers (Cape) should find out what role in the destablization of Cape Town politics he is playing and who is his handler and where this handler is stationed.
This investigation should widen to the Independent Newspapers (Cape) and not be restricted to the Cape Argus and Inkwenkwezi. It must kill all suspicions which discredit the reportage of the Cape Argus and Independent Newspapers (Cape) as the country heads for the 2006 local government elections. Even if its an internal investigation Ivan Flynn should state what it seeks to achieve and what informs it, and how it will be conducted for the sake of transparency, the same quality they demand from public institutions.
No one should be under any illusion that the good conduct of the media is what is at stake here, least of all Chris Gibbons of Cape Talk in his opinion expressed to Flynn that the issue be resolved quickly for the sake of local government elections reporting.
In the same way as stated by the First Amendment to the US Constitution that, "Congress shall make no law....abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" it therefore means the media industry including in South Africa is different from other industries because it enjoys special protection and this shouldn't be compromised or abused by unscrupulous journalists.
What is at stake at the Independent Newspapers (Cape) indeed in the whole of the Western Cape media industry is its credibility. The media must therefore adhere to the highest of ethical standards and not deviate from these under any pretext whatsoever. Reporting should be fair for all and the media should be accountable to the public as a whole and not to sections of the public or to business interests. A violation of the ethics of journalism should be treated very seriously indeed.
What the Cape Argus should propably do, is the same type of investigation which it did on Mcebisi Skwatcha's security company. They must dig into the company and find out its ownership/shareholding structure. There are some intersting facts there, I can assure you. Flynn will almost certainly find out that Joseph Aranes is one of the directors of the company which he set up with others to do political consulting work in the province.
Aranes has informed Blackman Ngoro in the past, at the time when the word
"Xhosa-nostra" was coined to describe the belief that there was a Mafia type of operation being run by Xhosa political figures in the Western Cape to push Coloureds out that he was forming a political consultancy. This phase, "Xhosa-nostra" was used in the news pages of the Cape Argus. Whether Inkwenkwezi is the company formed as a political consultancy can be verified if Aranes is on the ownership structure of the company.
Flynn should request Aranes to surrender the bank statements of this company to find out where payments have come from. It should be very easy to do that since he is under the employment of the Independent News (Cape).
While he is at it Flynn should also find out why the information stolen from Blackman Ngoro's office in the Mayor's office around September in 2004 and given to both Aranes and Smith was not brought to the attention of the newspaper's editor. He should find out and not necessarily inform the public the intention of those who stole this information from my office why they gave it to the two journalists who have been suspended. He should also seek to identify the thieves in order for everything to be in the open and distance his newspaper from the political manipulation going on.
Was it simply to publish it, to what end? Was it a political instruction, from which faction in the ANC or from which opposition political party?
When I sought to find out from Aranes who had been responsible for the theft of the information he said that I should find out myself as there were factions in the City of Cape Town, mayoral executive committee, which were fighting to unseat executive mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo. He said it was one of these factions, and he provided names of two senior African ANC councillors aligned to some factions in the provincial government.
The names of these two councillors mentioned by Aranes can be provided to authorities if it comes to that. Essentially the belief was that it would be possible to unseat Mfeketo by hitting Blackman Ngoro who was allegedly providing her with intellectual muscle.
The Cape Argus should also investigate why either Aranes or Smith thought the job I took in the ayor's office was intended for one of them? What or who gave them this belief? This belief should lead the Argus to the source who paid them?
Was the mud-slinging including false accusations of an alleged affair between Ngoro and Mfeketo part of what Inkwenkwezi was paid for? Was the desperate way the pair went about ensuring that this allegation was published, first by the Weekend Argus, using David Briar and Myolisi Gophe and then, successfully using Elliot Sylvester on the rag, the Daily Voice, part of the conspiracy for which they received payment?
Was the sensational reporting associated with the "find" of my article on Asia Afriorights website part of the political consulting work which Inkwekwezi was doing in the overall strategy to unseat Mfeketo?
The allegation of the alleged affair was also distributed to a Cape Town based Afrikaans rag before Elliot Sylvester master-minded the story on behalf of the Independent Newspapers. I know who sent it there. Was the aim the same, to unseat Mfeketo by all means necessary? The person who sent the information to a particular reporter at the Afrikaans rag was one of the two suspended journalists and the so-called taxi driver, who is in fact a contract driver at the Independent Newspapers confirmed it and informed me of this in a tape-recorded interview with me. He said it was "probably Ashley Smith".
The whole value-laden reporting of the Independent Newspapers (Cape) should be put under investigation.This should include sub-editors headline writing in stories where Africans Coloureds are the main protagonists or Africans and Whites are central to the story. Why it is always its the African who must look bad, who must have a bad day,who must become the villain? There must be a paradigm shift.
Further I would like to advise Chris Gibbons not to use his talk-show to try to influence Ivan Flynn by saying the investigation should be finished because there are local government elections on the horizon.
Local government elections donot depend on Joseph Aranes and/or Ashley Smith. If Gibbons cannot go out there and cover local government elections himself, that is his station's look out and his audience's loss. Gibbons should instead investigate the rumour he says is going around that the "ANC has set out to discredit the two journalists concerned".
He must give it substance since he repeats it and circulates it to a wider audience otherwise he must shut up. The consequences of circulating this rumour to a wider audience is to make it seem like the ANC is behind Aranes and Smith's suspension which indirecly means he is accusing Ivan Flynn of really bad things.
If Gibbons is a talk show host he should stick to what he does best and let the news gatherers do their job. If they are manipulating and "causing" news and not reporting events, as is suspected, then they shouldn't be in the newsroom. Gibbons should not confuse the codes of conduct for journalists with politics. What the Cape Argus is investigating is the possible violation of an employment code and journalistic ethics and not political reporting or whatever he imagines is happening in the ANC. I don't know if you Chris Gibbons are a trained journalist, but if you are this distinction shouldn't too difficult for you to understand.
Flynn should also investigate allegations that Aranes is doing work for the Democratic Alliance using the Cape Argus. In fact if Aranes and Smith are to be unleashed into the Cape Argus newsroom again they should be very very clean and all findings by the Cape Argus and Independent News(Cape) should be made a matter of public record if the group is to re-gain the trust of those who these two have in the past abused in the name of reporting.
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Friday, 02 December, 2005
| Journalists are not there to bring down legitimate governments whether at local level or at any other level on behalf of factions or opposition parties on the promise of jobs (0 Comments) |
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