August 28th, 2009
The Mail & Guardian is in a real fix: how can it stand by a reporter who did not take notes in a major interview which has caused a national furore?
It has become clear that reporter Sello Alcock did not take notes when conducting the interview in which Judge John Hlophe allegedly said he would not shake the hand of a white man. Hlophe has denied saying it and Alcock has admitted he did not take notes. However, he is adamant that Hlophe said it and the Mail & Guardian have backed him in this.
Hlophe has produced four affidavits from people who were present and who back him in saying he was misquoted. And he has produced a copy of an SMS sent by Alcock which raises the possibility of the M&G withdrawing the story.
Hlophe has complained to the Press Ombud and it is difficult to see how the Ombud can do anything but excoriate Alcock for not doing something as fundamental as take notes, and the M&G for backing a story missing such basic evidence as a notebook.
I cannot see that the M&G can do anything other than withdraw the story. Even if they believe the story to have been correct, they have to admit that it is so fundamental an error not to have taken notes that they have to concede the error and back off.
Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Print
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
Among the main results from the World Association of Newspaper’s Newsroom Barometer (a survey of 700 editors and senior news execs in 120 countries) for this year:
- 86% believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm, and 83% believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.
- Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.
- A plurality - 44% - believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.
- A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year’s survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure. - From Editors’ Weblog
There is a crisis in trust and communication between the British public and the mainstream media, a new report has concluded. The gulf between public expectations of news provision and the actual nature of articles, which oscillate between esoteric or irresponsible, leaves readers feeling confused and excluded.
The report, entitled ‘Public Trust In The News’ was conducted by researchers from Manchester and Leeds Universities and was published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. - From Editors Weblog
Reflections on Journalism in the Transition to Democracy - Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2004).
Journalism in the Age of the Market
- Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture, Centre for Civil Society, University of KZN, Aug 2002
The Untimely Death of SA’s Finest Daily - Sunday Times, May 2005
“Two Newspapers, Two Nations? The Media and the Xenophobic Violence” from Go Home or Die Here, edited by Shireen Hassim Tawana Kupe and Eric Worby (WUP, 2008)
Remarks at Goedgedacht Forum, October 2008
The rise of social network journalism - From The 2009 Flux Trend Review (Macmillan, 2008)
A recent piece by me on the Zapiro cartoon row which appeared in Comment is Free, a Guardian blog.
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1 Comment Add your own
1. Cedric Mboyisa | September 1st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I tend to concur with you Prof, the M&G will lose this one hands down! Once again, it’s a case of lack of concrete (in this instance none) evidence against the Cape Judge President John Hlophe.
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