The Soapbox | Where South Africans Speak Out

BY AKANYANG MEREMENTSI

Being the reasonable person I think I am, there are so-called stories and news that are not newsworthy and just not worth reporting at all. Or as people would prefer: that are not in the public interest. Before getting into the crap that some newspapers would report on or have a tendency of reporting, I thought of giving meanings to the following terms:

• In the public interest: that which will generate the community point of views or interests,
• Crap: just bullshit or nonsense,
• Newsworthy: of sufficient interest to the public or a special audience to warrant press attention or coverage,

With the above in mind, was Julius “Juju” Malema (not) paying his traffic fines and renewing his driver’s licence in any possible way in and of the public interest?

The Times newspaper reported of Malema paying his traffic fines and renewing his driver’s licence. Now this is what I call even crapper journalism.

And yes, I may know nothing about journalism let alone having studied the subject (and I write anyway) – but that does not mean I cannot make up my own mind of what would be in the public interest and what would not? Hell, even Jacob Zuma did not go to some university to study masters or doctoral degree to learn leadership in order to lead a developing country such as ours, South Africa, but he is a president.

A staff reporter for The Times quoted Beeld newspaper which quoted The Star that reported on Monday that Juju had two outstanding traffic fines equal to R4 450. “Eleven of the fines were for speeding and ranged from R100 to R1100. The other was for skipping a red light. All the fines were linked to the C-class Mercedes-Benz, which Malema claimed was the only car he owned,” the newspaper had reported.

According to Julian Rademeyer, a Media24 journalist, who covered the story both on News24 and Beeld newspaper – it is alleged by the former report that most of the fines were issued against Mercedes Benz C-class cars and other fines for Hyundai Tucson suspectedly belonging to or owned by Juju.

Juju’s spokesperson has since denied allegations in the report as it was “not true… [and that Juju] has got a driver’s licence”.  At least that’s a relief, for now maybe. And one may have to agree with Juju spokesperson that these kinds of reports are private things… [and that people, and newspapers in this case]… are just being sensational about it” mainly because one does not see why we should be informed of this.

Everyone gets traffic fines once in a while. My father did receive more than one last year, my colleagues did receive a couple this year. And probably some members of the Democratic Alliance – excuse my politicking of this issue – and even some members of the African National Congress, with the possibility of some African National Young League members have received one or two fines before and there has not been any report on that before. So what’s the fuss? Or is it because of  one’s position in an organization – and Malema being president of the ANCYL in this case – that everyone suddenly reports on his traffic fines?

Does this mean the next time we are likely to see reports of what shoe size Malema wears, what underwear size (if any) – whether tanga or just boxer – what’s in his refrigerator, etc? Please, this is just some crap journalism.

The only time when one heard of a politician’s shoe size was during the corruption trail of a now ‘drug trafficker’ Glenn Agliotti when he told the Johannesburg Court last year that he had bought former president Thabo Mbeki a size 7 pair of shoes because he had “small and broad feet”.

What is even disappointing is that although the Star may have broken the story which both Beeld and News24 took forth – The Times newspaper has not made any follow up on the story and at the time of writing there was not follow-up on the newspaper’s web site on whether Juju’s spokesperson or Juju himself had admitted to or denied the allegation, yet the Star and News24 and Beeld did make a follow up.

Now what is that?

Shouldn’t The Times have made a follow on the story as is and would be reasonably expected of newspapers and journalists or rather journalism in general: report and make a follow up? Or like some journos would have us believe: report, however crap the story may be, and let readers make up their mind?

Well, in that case I just made up mine: “When news is hard to find and report on, newspapers write crap.”

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.