by Blackman Ngoro
Journalism suffered greatly when it was revealed that Cape Argus senior reporter, Joseph Aranes who had risen to the position of political editor and executive editor of the Cape Argus was paid money by political party sources, in order to tarnish the names and reputations of the paymaster’s political opponents.

Joseph Aranes, a former garbage collector for the City of Cape Town before he was invited by Moegsien Williams to the newspaper, back then during the anti-apartheid days, immediately resigned.

Ashley Smith had also taken the same route when the act was uncovered. Both reporters are heavy drinkers and Smith has had a drug problem.

It is now important for the Independent Newspapers (Cape) and its editor in chief, Chris Whitfield, to institute an enquiry into the number of stories produced by both Ashley Smith and Joseph Aranes, to find out what they were asked to do by their Ibrahim Rasool, the former Western Cape premier.

An audit of the stories in the period under question should go a long way to determine how far the newspaper was compromised by reportage which was designed to paint a particular picture. The credibility of the newspaper is in question if this audit is not done. It would be a mark of transparency, a test of reliability and credibility for the newspaper to undertake this study in order to publicise its findings on how it was compromised.

It then becomes important to find out whether the quality control in the news production process is up to scratch on a newspaper where the news editor and the chief sub should be experienced with “bias” in a news story.

Obviously the fact that both Smith and Aranes are Coloureds and more importantly that Aranes was the executive editor made it easy to pass propaganda as news stories. The production staff including the editor in chief at Independent Newspapers (Cape) Chris Whitfield never doubts what Coloured reporters say.

The need for this study by the newspaper is to understand what role the newspaper played, whether it was aware it was being used or not in causing the divisions in political parties and in society in general. It is also important to reassure the public that they are not being fed propaganda when they read news stories on the Independent Newspapers (Cape) pages. The group must cultivate back whatever amount of credibility it has left by exposing how and where they were compromised by members of staff.

Attempts by Whitfield to obtain tapes on which the alleged practice was confirmed is the legal route which the group always resorts to but what about looking into the texts and finding out through ideological analysis what actually transpired? Would that not be the honourable thing to do apart from trying to protect the group’s reputation legally?