Reporting

Andrew Layman:  PCB CEO

Last week there was a press article drawing attention to the fact that the senior management of the Msunduzi Municipality had spent R55 000 on a strategic planning getaway.   Unacceptable extravagance and wastefulness was implied by the headline to the article and reference to the excursion to the ‘berg couched in a way that suggested that the executive officials had been luxuriating in a resort at the expense of the city, despite its parlous financial situation.   Predictably, because people are inclined to believe what they read in the paper, the article was followed by at least one letter in which an angry rate-payer joined the bandwagon of criticism, suggesting that the wayward management of the past had not abated.   I’ve never quite worked out why readers are particularly attracted to articles that criticise government or denigrate other people; nor why it is that journalists feed this bizarre attraction in the way they often do.   

In the case of our city, criticism of the Municipality reached epidemic proportions and negative articles about the local government’s performance were fully justified as it turned out.   But they didn’t always deal with the real issues.   Instead, they were clearly identifiable as tip-offs, given anonymously perhaps, about individuals or events.    It begs the question as to who phones journalists to tip them off.  For the most part, they are people who have particular, and personal, axes to grind.   People who are earnest about reporting corruption or fraud will usually follow one of the many above-board channels available for this purpose.   Tip-offs are seldom based on objective assessment of the facts, but hearsay and biased perception.    It is for this reason that they should be treated with a great deal of circumspection by the journalist who should use them as a spur to investigate, not as the meat of their next untested story.    The facts of the municipal strategic planning exercise and its cost reflected a very different picture.   Over forty newly-appointed acting executives at senior levels, together with the administration team spent from Tuesday to Saturday at the least expensive getaway resort that they could find.    They took their food with them and used the self-catering facilities on offer.  They shared bungalows and, without interruption from cell phone calls or television or any other distraction, they worked on identifying the ways they, as a team, would set about turning the municipality around.   The cost worked out to be about R340 per day per participant, including all accommodation and meals.   The political leadership joined the group on the Friday to receive a report on the strategic plan that had been devised.   The Mayor, the Speaker and the Chief Whip shared accommodation.   Critics might take the view that this exercise could have been done at City Hall, but anyone with experience of intense strategic planning knows that it is never successful unless the participants are removed from their daily routines and all the interruptions that occur inevitably.   However, the real concern to me, and others at the Chamber, was the untested imputations of extravagance and wastefulness and even a hint at corruption.   

In my view, it was very shoddy journalism.   I understand that in the world in which we live, this event in the life of the municipality would hardly have been newsworthy without it being coloured by some insinuation.   An article that praised the municipal executives for giving of their time in the interests of their work and deliberately seeking the least expensive option for their getaway would probably have failed to get past the sub-editor.   The jury is out on the alleged offences of the Sunday Times journalist who had General Cele signing a property lease and a provincial Premier submitting a letter of resignation.    As far as the former issue is concerned, it smacks of tip-off, a factually incorrect one apparently, which the journalist failed to investigate before going to press.   This did not justify the elaborate, public arrest procedure, however, which was surely accompanied by the necessary tip-off to the media beforehand.   There is no point in sending a posse of policemen in such a collection of vehicles unless the media is present to record the show of force. 

All these things have to be taken into account if we wish to assess the wisdom of a media tribunal.   The right of free speech prohibits this possibility; unsubstantiated tip-off journalism suggests it is justified.    The right must over-ride any other consideration and errant journalists should not be allowed by the profession itself to besmirch its integrity.              

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