» Am I consistent?

Am I consistent?

February 4th, 2009

The Sowetan journalists are upset with me, perplexed at how I could have criticised their coverage of the President (”He sleeps alone, like a monk”) but defended the Star’s expose of the three women competing for his affections.

Here’s how I explained the difference:

My view has been consistent: one is entitled to invade the president’s privacy if the information is relevant to his capacity to do his job. It is relevant to know who the First Lady is. It is relevant to know if he is not following his own government policy promoting faithfulness to one partner. It is relevant if he is being hypocritical or dishonest. The Sowetan story which I criticized did not deal with this – it took us into the bedroom and went into details which were not relevant and which should remain private.
The president – like all public figures – gives up some of his privacy when he chooses to become president, because he has to be accountable to us. But it shouldn’t be a free-for-all. We still have to respect his dignity. We have to show that what we publish is relevant to his character and values, and therefore his leadership, and is not just tabloid titillation. In my view, the Star story about his multiple partners was relevant; the Sowetan story about him “sleeping alone like a monk” crossed over into titillation. It is a fine distinction, but an important one, I think.

Am I right?

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Print

1 Comment Add your own

1. Paddy | February 5th, 2009 at 2:19 am

Anton,

Technically, you may be right or, on the other hand, you may be wrong.

More importantly, I’m rather more worried by the fact that you find the description of a man sleeping alone more titillating than one that details three women competing for his affection.

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed

Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)

(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)

“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.

“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report

“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)

Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011

Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn

Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.

What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)