News Breakers vs. News Bakers

Corrupt Journalism In South Africa (And Beyond) - Part 4

It is the dream of every journalist to see their stories selling like hot cakes. We all know that without readers, journalists are nothing but ink masturbators who enjoy getting off from self-flagellation. Readers are key, hence the need to deliver the most attention-grabbing stories within the deadline of news relevance. No matter how good a story is, readers prefer it as fresh a muffin from the oven. I know this because I worked for a press agency that syndicated our news to tens of newspapers in South Africa, and news sites across the world.

I remember several years ago we had a journalist who derived pleasure from making his colleagues suffer in the newsroom. Was he a sadist? I may not comment much on that, but I do know that the man had all sorts of weird tendencies, from bringing muthi to the office, to accusing people of bewitching him. 

Almost everyone in the office was his enemy. He would often confide in me, I take it because I was a soft guy and very easy to approach or have a conversation with. This doesn’t mean I was comfortable being close to him.

In all fairness, he made me so uncomfortable there came a time where I had to consult the greatest sangoma known to the millennial generation: Gogo Google. I asked the sangoma advice on how to deal with bullies in the workplace. Gogo Google has never let me down. She told me to use my imagination. I learned that in order to deal with a bully, just find a way to turn their anger into comedy. From that day whenever the colleague came to me talking crap at the height of his voice (so everyone could hear and tremble), I simply pictured his nose growing big like some furry cartoon character, Pinocchio style. As he continued to yell I would burst out laughing. This was truly helpful.

To make matters worse, the man was extremely jealous of colleagues who were scoring front page bylines in the national papers. He was a hard-worker, but I learned along the way that journalism is not about hard work, but heart work. If you love what you do you give it your all and enjoy yourself while doing so, no matter how many walls you crash into.

Feeling the pressure, the hard-working bully would go to the field, looking for front page stories. One day he found one. Indeed, his story was a hit. It made front page at a national level. It was a story about a rooster that fought off criminals in a certain dangerous area in a township, east of Nelspruit. He had photos of the zany-looking rooster and great interviewers from community members who had nothing but adoration for the brave cock.

We praised his name for months, not knowing there was more to the story than met the eye.

One day, while having a work celebration (over rounds of booze), I mentioned the story and an idea I had to make it an international hit. I told the man that I needed him to accompany me to the area so I could do a full documentary on the hero rooster. I told him that getting professionals to do the filming would be as easy as ABC since I had good friends in the South African film industry.

Instead of celebrating the idea, he became stressed out. I tried to produce proof of the film producers that I had on my phone’s contact list, but he wasn’t interested. I pestered him until he came clean.

“There is no hero rooster, my broer,” he said.

I thought maybe I hadn’t heard him properly, so I leaned closer to try hearing what the man was saying.

“I said there is no rooster. I fabricated the whole thing,” he confessed.

“What do you mean? I saw the photos and read what the community members had to say about the mighty fowl. What do you mean it’s all fabricated?” I roasted him.

The long and short of it is that the man had only taken a photo of an innocent rooster on top of a barbed wire fence, and then fictionalised all the interviews. His justification was that he was under too much pressure to perform.

“I also wanted my story on a front page. So, I decided to make everything up and send the story to our editor. The newspapers loved it and so did the readers,” he said.

I was shocked for days. I never breathed a word to anyone for fear of embarrassing our company and our clients. It is only now that I have to speak about this matter because my blog requires me to come clean.

The veteran journalist had baked the story. And unfortunately, I’ve often heard of a number of journalists who do exactly that. Their interests might not lean towards roosters, but towards innocent people who have a constitutional right to enjoy privacy and dignity.

This anti-journalistic skulduggery is often the work of corrupt journalists who are hell-bent on destroying a particular individual in order to appease some puppet master somewhere. They do not care how many lives get destroyed in the process. All they want is money and fame, or vice versa. I call these scoundrels News Bakers.

Journalism requires us to be news breakers. However, when some fail, they resort to news baking. For this reason, my employers reached a stage where they requested journalists to have audio recordings of all their interviews and wherever necessary use video. This was after some scandal that broke out that nearly destroyed our company. It involved a Limpopo journalist who regretted an article he wrote and decided to accuse us of fabricating the story. I had only been an editor for less than three months, and my job was already on the line. Luckily, my bosses knew I was not the kind of guy who would bake news. They sided with me, and later it was proven that the incident happened. I will share the full story in a future post.

Here is the point. If the industry powers that be continue to let journalists bake stories, the entire profession will continue to spiral down the dangerous path of forcing politicians to regulate the Fourth Estate. Once journalism is regulated, there is no soul that will enjoy the freedom of telling truth to power. The day journalism is no longer a self-regulating industry it will be the day society’s enemies would have won. Public coffers will be plundered with impunity and disregard. Think about how many billions have been stolen from the public purse in the Republic of South Africa in the past 25 years and beyond. Now, imagine what would happen if the media were to be regulated – at a political level!

Breaking news is a requirement of proactive journalism. Baking news is nothing but a road that leads the noble profession to perdition. We do not need Confectionary Journalism when we are already engaged in an endless struggle against Brown Envelope Journalism and Brown Bottle Journalism. The only journalism we need is ethical journalism, which is not only based on multiple sources, but on credible sources that provide evidence or point to it. Accuracy is the backbone of journalism. Used for any other means, journalism can become nefarious, nonsensical and nauseating.

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].