Independent Media published banner apology

Kevin Ritchie Regional Executive Editor: Gauteng Independent Media

There are two main issues which they raise; one, the perennial perceived anti-Israel bias, the other the specific issue of the publication of the three-year-old story taken from the Telesur news agency of the rocket attack into Gaza.

What your readers are perhaps unaware of are the very close lines of communication between the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation that run directly to the offices of the executive chairman, the regional executive editors and many of our title editors.

The Board of Deputies in fact had a media monitoring service – chosen by themselves – probe The Star and the Cape Times over a year-long period to probe complaints of anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. Neither could be proved.

In the case of the Telesur issue, Independent Media were not the only ones who published that wrong report that day; several US newspapers did too, as well as some in Europe. The issue was identified very quickly and responded to in the very next edition.

I became alerted to SAZF Chairman Ben Swartz’s unhappiness through an e-mail. I met him very shortly thereafter and the Group Foreign Editor Shannon Ebrahim instructed that every world page the following day (in The Star, The Cape Argus, the Cape Times, The Mercury and the Pretoria News) publish a banner apology running almost the entire width of the page – in itself an unprecedented effort to make amends and show good faith. I am flabbergasted that none of your readers appear to have seen this.

There will always be people who take issue with newspapers, that is the nature of our business. Media freedom is not the freedom to publish views with which we agree, but rather the contrary, to publish news and views that will test the way we see the world. It is incumbent upon us, though, to be balanced and fair.

We will never compromise on that, indeed as Mr Wolman notes, that has been our executive chairman’s unequivocal injunction to all the editors in Independent Media since the very beginning – along with his commitment never to interfere with their decisions as part of his commitment to editorial independence. Dr Iqbal Survé will however respond in due course in the new year to your readers too, on all these issues.