What Is Corrupt Journalism?

Corrupt Journalism In South Africa (And Beyond) - Part 3

Corrupt journalism is a business. It is both a lucrative and dangerous business, for its practitioners and clients. This form of unethical journalism is only aimed at influencing the news narrative against certain individuals or groups and in favour of others - mostly for financial benefit.

During my days of investigative work at the defunct international press agency, African Eye News Service (AENS), I discovered that corrupt journalism was rife within the media industry. In all honesty, AENS journalists were dead broke while the rest of the city was buzzing with moneyed news hounds. It was hard to tell how they were so moneyed: Was it the payslip, or was it the envelope? We could only verify a few salaries, but you could tell that others were running side businesses. That’s when I learned what a corrupt journalist is: a politician disguised as a news reporter.

The day you do your homework, you will find out that corrupt journalists are nothing but a bunch of blackmail specialists. These professional con artists specialise in tracking and gathering scandalous information about certain people who occupy a certain space at certain sections of our society. Obviously, a blackmailer will not target ordinary people. They target socially important people, such as political leaders, government leaders, religious leaders, and community leaders. And trust me on this one; corrupt journalists don’t work with unicorns. They get the antelope.

One thing that a corrupt journalist knows is that people with great influence and social standing generally depend on a good public image. They know that most leaders are ego-centric and downright narcissistic. You touch their public image, you touch their private bread. It is this fear of losing bread that leads to a successful blackmailing ruse.

Once a corrupt journalist has gathered compromising information about you he will threaten to destroy your public image. As soon as he manages to make you afraid he will immediately blackmail you. Should, peradventure, you choose to ignore the blackmail demands (which is highly unlikely) made against you, the corrupt journo will go ahead and carry out his threats. Next thing you know, your crooked ass is plastered on the front page of a national publication, with your dirty laundry hanging out there for everyone to see.

One thing you should know: Corrupt journalists do not make empty threats unless they are desperate. When desperate, a corrupt journalist will get tired of chasing a unicorn, but use whatever unverified rumour he heard as a fishing tactic. In journalism, fishing tactics work most of the time. When a journalist has failed to gather the information he is looking for, especially where a scandal is involved, he will gun for the fish. Fishing is what any journalist, corrupt or not, would do if the story is not coming together.

We call fault the journo all we want, but sometimes editors are to blame. We often put so much pressure on our juniors, such that they are left with no choice but to ‘perform miracles’ before the deadline. At the same time, we cannot blame the editors, either. They are part of a pressure system that only works based on results. An editor’s greatest fear is for a rumour to turn into a fact that is published in another newspaper or news site. Editors (and media houses) hate being scooped. Being scooped means you are not good at what you do. You cannot afford to be scooped.

In the competitive world that is news publishing, a media house is judged based on its ability to break the news. Media houses that fail to break news often bake news. We will deal with this in a future post about Breaking News vs. Baking News. All I can say for now is that the difference between news breakers and news bakers is in the documentary proof published along with the story. Journalists and editors who fail to break news are often left broken-hearted. That leads to many using their fishing tactics to get the potential scandal victims to panic and react, oftentimes to their own detriment.

It is therefore not surprising to see desperate and corrupt journalists using news-fishing tactics to catch their big fish. Public figures using inexperienced communication teams or tenderpreneur PR agencies always fall for the trick and get injured in the reactionary process. A PR expert has experience in the uncanny art of sensational journalism. They know how to spot the difference between hunter journalists and fisher journalists. Hunter journalists normally produce evidence of the antelope, even if it is but the bloody head of the poor animal. Fisher journalists only dangle a worm, hoping the fish bites. Learning to detect the difference between the two should help any PR expert know when to panic and when not to.

However, in a world of skeletons in closets, corrupt journalists almost always win. It matters little if they are hunters or fishers. The fishers know that dangling a fat worm in front of a guilty fish works magic. The fish will immediately attempt to attend to the worm, only to find itself out of the water.

For example, a corrupt journalist hears a rumour that a certain minister is sleeping with a certain businesswoman whose company is netting multimillion-rand tenders from the minister’s department. He looks for information, but cannot find anything concrete. What does he do next? He sends a myriad of scary questions to the minister’s office, causing the minister to panic. The minister is only panicking because he is guilty. He doesn’t care what evidence the fisherman has on him; he just wants the smell of the scandal to go away. He will do anything necessary to ensure the matter dies down. But if the minister is innocent (i.e., not sleeping with the tenderpreneur in exchange for tenders), he will laugh the questions away. The less he says, the more frustrating it will be for the corrupt journalist. Yet, sometimes, not responding to questions can lead to regret because your silence can be taken as consent, where news baking is concerned. For more on this, read my post, News Breakers vs. News Bakers.

The truth is that corrupt journalists usually threaten you based on real compromising information that they have already gathered against you. If they demand half a million from a minister, they often get their money. The minister will compare losing half a million to losing his lucrative career as a political leader of a multibillion-rand government portfolio. The corrupt journalist is almost always sure that their blackmail will work, unless he is a poor fisherman.

How Do Corrupt Journalists Threaten Their Targets?

Corrupt journalists are still journalists. They are smart and their moves are well-calculated. Unless a corrupt journalist has grown reckless, he doesn’t directly threaten to expose you. Instead, he promises to protect you from the information being published. It is this promise (or indirect threat) that will decide your safety in the position you occupy. It is this promise that will make you cooperate with your money, and at times, body. I personally know a former journalist who was not only offered cash for his silence but was also given sex as a bonus. The guy was so ruthless. For many months, he used the poor top government official as his cash cow and sex slave. The day she grew tired of his demands, he went ahead and published all the damning articles he had been keeping in his corruption archive. Needless to say, she was horrified, humiliated and haunted. How did we know about this? The journalist in question was arrogant enough to go around showing his industry colleagues angry SMSes from the top government official, which proved she had given him her money and body to keep him quite over a long period.

The official felt betrayed, but as I stated before, corrupt journalism is a dangerous business. That means corrupt journalists are dangerous people. Messing with a corrupt journalist can put you in danger, simply because blackmailers never stop. Whenever they are broke, they call their victim for more cash. If only the South African government could call for a Truth And Reconciliation Commission on Media Bribery, many corrupt politicians would tell how much they suffered in the hands of media blackmailers.

In conclusion, I will repeat my statement. Corrupt journalists are dangerous. They have the ability to make financial claims in the name of their media colleagues. You could be working as a journalist, but not knowing that there are 10 politicians who believe they have paid you hundreds of thousands when they actually haven’t. You can be the highest paid journo in the industry, without you ever receiving a cent. How do they achieve that?

·         They use fake email accounts to send out media questions

·         They create a fake crisis in order to provide solutions to the scandal victim

·         They act as mediators between politicians and other journalists

·         They act as mediators between politicians and other media houses

·         They spy on their colleagues and feed the information to the enemy

It is a scary world indeed. I would say we are now living in dangerous times, but that would be a lie. We have always been living in dangerous times. It is only now that things are coming to light. However, do not count on this post to change the mind of a corrupt journalist. As I’m logging off, I can assure you that there is a corrupt journalist somewhere in the country awaiting payment from an equally corrupt politician or government official, especially now that the elections are upon us.

QUOTABLE QUOTE: Corruption is a psychological disease. Until our minds are transformed, our society will continue to be corrupt to the bone. For that reason alone, we desperately need a taste of Mind Power Journalism - the kind of journalism that investigates psychological (internal) corruption, as opposed to material (external) corruption. A man is corrupt in his mind before he is corrupt in the world.

Regards,

Kgoshii Lerabela

Son of Detani Mulli

[Kgoshii Lerabela is a Seasoned Journalist, A Public Relations Specialist, An Author, Publisher, Public Speaker and Leader of the Network for Independent Street Political Analysts (NISPA). He is based in Mpumalanga, South Africa].