Ombudsman forces climb-down by Star, Cape Times

DAVID SAKS

The complaint concerned two reports by The Star’s Foreign Editor Shannon Ebrahim that appeared on November 19 and 23. It was contended that the articles constituted “a serious (and possibly deliberate) misrepresentation of the facts concerning a matter of much sensitivity, namely whether or not South Africa has undertaken to arrest senior Israeli military leaders at the behest of the Turkish government”.

The complaint was lodged in the names of Jeff Katz and Ben Swartz, respectively national chairmen of the SAJBD and SAZF. 

In terms of the finding, The Star was found guilty of a Tier 2 (serious) breach of Section 2.3 of the Press Code for stating its conclusions as fact, namely that:

•       South Africa would enforce Turkey’s warrants of arrest should the Israeli commanders set foot in this country;

•       following the arrest of any of the four charged with war crimes, South Africa would grant Turkey’s request for extradition; and

•       Turkey has welcomed South Africa’s decision to enforce the arrest warrants.

Ombudsman Johan Retief also upheld complaints against the Cape Times for similar reports by Ebrahim on the same subject. These included complaints from SAZF (Western Cape) Chairman Rowan Polivin and community member Sidney Kaye.  

Both newspapers were directed to publish the finding on the same page as the first story, as well on their websites, with the texts being subject to the Ombudsman’s approval and which had to end with the sentence, “Visit www.presscouncil.org.za for the full finding”.

In addition, the ruling required that the headline should reflect the content of the text. The Star has since complied with the ruling.

The Cape Times, however, was requested “for the sake of fairness and justice” to reprint the finding after originally publishing it under the headline, “Complaints against Cape Times dismissed”.

In the same issue in which the ruling appeared, the Cape Times carried a piece entitled “Global phenomenon of funded lobby ready to go to war for Israel”, a conspiracy theory-laden article by Philip Giraldi from the rabidly anti-Israel blogging platform UNZ Review.

A secondary aspect of the complaint was that Ebrahim had displayed unwarranted anti-Israel bias, particularly in her one-sided account of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, in which nine Turkish nationals were killed in a confrontation with Israeli commandos who boarded the ship.

The complaint also objected to Ebrahim’s terming of the 2008-9 Gaza conflict as a “massacre” by Israel of 1 400 Palestinians. Retief took the view that his office was “in no position to decide on the merits of the contextual arguments in question” and would not make a decision on the issue.

He also remarked that he was not convinced by the argument that the word “massacre” of necessity referred to the slaughter of innocent people. Accordingly, this aspect of the complaint was dismissed.

In a joint statement, the SAJBD and SAZF said that while they respected the Ombudsman’s reasons for adopting this approach, this in no way effected their original contention that the articles, in addition to being blatantly false from a factual point of view, were overtly and inappropriately biased against Israel.   

Swartz said that the finding had fully vindicated the original objections raised by the SAJBD and SAZF when the articles first appeared. The Star’s response on that occasion had been to pour scorn on their claims, but in the end, it was the newspaper that had been forced to back down.