BLACKLISTING AT INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS In October and early November of 1999 I accused Cape Argus (in a series of letters that were acknowledged in writing by the Ministry of Justice )of borrowing the points from one of my letters for use in the editorial ’’Should judges bend to public opinion’’(October 11, 1999) and of delaying this editorial for more than two weeks in order to gain more mileage from the story about Judge Foxcroft’s failure to impose a mandatory life-sentence on a 54 year old incestuous rapist (which resulted ,inter alia, in Judge Foxcroft being summoned to appear before a Parliamentary sub-committee, in our Chief Justices complaining to the United Nations about a threat to judicial independence, and in Cape Argus printing an article, ”Judges cancel meeting with M.P‘s (November 16, 1999), in which the chair of the Parliamentary sub-committee, Pregs Govender, accused the media of stirring up trouble between the government and the judiciary). Unfortunately, my complaint resulted in me being blacklisted by I.N for 27 months, which forced me to move the campaign for the introduction of plea-bargaining, which began with Cape Argus printing “Why not use US system of deals” on November 5, 1998, to Sunday Times, which published “Traditional Courts wanting” on May 7, 2001 and “Plea-bargaining may be the answer” on the following Sunday. Even my battle with Cllr Paddy Chapple, (which featured on the front page of Sunday Times’ Cape Metro Section on December 16 2001, and saw Krisjan Lemmer of Mail and Guardian offer, in his tongue-in-cheek column,” any number of Klipdrifts for more info”), was not of interest to I.N. (Weird when one considers that Ashley Smith of Cape Times – who later was suspended for ghost-writing for Premier Ebrahim Rassool - initially told me that he couldn’t do a story because Chapple had accused me of fabricating the entire story -including the part about Chapple dropping his pants in a neighbouring pub - but still wasn’t interested when Chapple at his hearing belatedly admitted that he had indeed removed his trousers in a neighbouring pub (Obs Tattoo Bar) and had indeed had a heated argument with me later on the same evening, but had no recollection whatsoever of what our heated argument had been about, but nevertheless was certain that he had not, during this heated argument, admonished me for having made a previous complaint against him and also was certain that he had consumed only 3 beers before our heated argument and another 3 when he returned home! (Imagine a newspaper not being interested in a story about a ward-councillor who removes his trousers in a bikers’-bar , repeatedly insists that he has no recollection whatsoever of what he and I had argued about, but announces in Sunday Times that he has been wrongfully convicted and will be appealing, which he never does! Smith could have blown him to smithereens in the space of one or two sentences). Fortunately, on the day of Chapple’s hearing – which saw the committee decide by majority decision that Chapple had been inebriated and had admonished me - the National Assembly adopted plea-bargaining and another bill that I had been lobbying for. This evidently caused I.N to have a change of heart, for approximately a month later Cape Argus printed “Price of punishment” (which it attributed to “Name Withheld, Woodstock”) and approximately a week thereafter printed “Rape remains a violent act” (which it attributed to Terence Grant, Woodstock, instead of to T. Grant, Woodstock, which was how I until 2005 always signed my letters). After this everything was hunky-dory until Martine Barker on June 6 2005 printed my “Hands off the Judiciary”, which was reprinted on June 11 by Saturday Argus in conjunction with an anti-transformation editorial (“Upholding standards key to transformation”)and an anti-transformation front-page story about the impact of transformation on our forensic-laboratories. I was amazed that no-one had responded to this incredibly powerful letter and hence telephoned Cape Argus on the pretext of enquiring as to whether a follow-up letter would be published. This resulted in Joseph Aranes informing me, in a very unfriendly, abrupt tone of voice that he was standing in for Martine, who had gone on leave, and he would not be printing my letter. This unfriendliness, coupled with the failure to print a response to “Hands off our Judiciary” etcetera, led me to suspect that Aranes or someone else at Cape Argus had perceived “Hands off our Judiciary” as an attempt to identify myself as the author of the points used in the editorial “Should judges bend to public opinion” (which really shouldn’t be that big an issue when one considers that Cape Times News-Editor, Tony Weaver in 2004 accused Cape Argus, in an article published in Mail and Guardian under a pseudonym, of routinely ”plagiarising” Cape Times’ articles: iol.co.za/news/south-africa/cape-times-news-editor-suspended-1.228193#.Uym076iSyU4 Consequently, I bombarded Cape Argus with letters on a daily basis in the hope of demonstrating that ignoring me would not be easy and approximately two weeks later hit the jackpot with “Shaka was no democrat”. At this juncture I decided to take a break from letter-writing and was still on this break when Cape Argus in November of 2005 announced that its editor, Ivan Fynn had suspended political-editor, Joseph Aranes and political-writer, Ashley Smith (who in the interim had moved over to Cape Argus) amid allegations that they were being paid by Premier Ebrahim Rassool to write articles that portrayed him in a positive light and his opponents and competitors in a negative light. iol.co.za/news/politics/reporter-i-was-paid-to-pursue-rasool-agenda-1.488472#.UynAa6iSyU4 Additional points 1) Krisjan Lemmer in his tongue-in-cheek column explained that he caught wind of the story after one of Mayor Pieter Marais’ spokespersons stated that he was unfamiliar with certain aspects of the street-renaming fiasco because he at the time had been busy trying to supress a story about a councillor who removed his trousers in a pub. 2) At the hearing I initially was allowed to cross-examine Chapple, which after 3 or 4 questions resulted in him admitting that he knew the identity of the person who in an anonymous letter threatened to ensure that I lost my liquor licence, if I did not withdraw the complaint I had made against Chapple. This opened the door to the accusation that Chapple had been party to an attempt to intimidate me/obstruct justice and immediately led one of his colleagues to complain that it was inappropriate to allow Chapple to be cross-examined. At the behest of the Speaker, Cllr Danny De La Cruz, I left the room in order to allow the committee to discuss the issue, and upon my return was told that it was indeed inappropriate to allow a councillor to be cross-examined; that I should instead give my version of events and leave the committee to do the rest. This I did and the committee later ruled in my favour, deciding by majority decision that Chapple had – despite his protestations - been inebriated and had - despite his protestations – admonished me for having complained about him on a previous occasion to the municipal manager. 3) A successful cover-up was foiled when someone leaked a copy of the file to Sunday Times, which in the article, “Councillor found guilty of inebriation” (December 16, 2001) used the word, “leaked”. 4 )It was an open-secret that political-writer Ashley Smith (formerly of Cape Times) and political-editor Joseph Aranes had indeed been working for Rasool, but all that could be proven conclusively at the time was that Ashley Smith’s ex-wife was a director of a public-relations company that had done quite a bit of work for Rasool, and that Aranes knew of this conflict of interest. Consequently, with Smith resigning before the hearing was concluded, Aranes was found guilty of failing to report this conflict of interest to Cape Argus Editor, Ivan Fynn, given a warning and moved side-ways into the role of letters-editor by the newly-appointed editor of Cape Argus and W. Argus, Chris Whitfield, who at the time was accused by many of having presided over a cover-up. (Well-known human-rights activist and journalist, Rhoda Khadalie described the cover –up in a 2005 column as “reminiscent of the Information Scandal” and in a 2010 column stated that Whitfield’s protestations of innocence ” made her want to puke”. bdlive.co.za/articles/2010/07/13/rhoda-kadalie-stench-of-secrecy-in-rasool-spin-scandal) 5) I complained on countless occasions to Chris Whitfield (who later became Editor-in-Chief of Independent Newspapers Cape) that Cape Argus letters-editor, Joseph Aranes, who had a strong preference for zero-tolerance, harsher sentencing and drastic action (such as the amputation of limbs and penises/tjollies and the scrapping of our constitution) was rejecting my letters in order to prevent me from putting an end to the debate about harsher sentencing (by focusing on the cost of incarcerating petty-offenders etc.) and in one memorable letter sarcastically asked whether 30 pieces of silver would secure his intervention. Whitfield did not reply to any of these letters. 6) In 2009 I informed Whitfield in a letter faxed from a machine that records the message in the fax receipt (which I still have in my possession) that Cape Times features-writer, Bianca Coleman was working as a manageress at Club Decodance at The Old Biscuit-Mill and had a few months previously written a 550 word article (accompanied by photographs)in which she raved about Decodance without disclosing that she was employed by it (and apparently had shares in it). Although this represented a clear-cut/egregious example of a conflict of interest, Whitfield failed to respond to my letter, which I believe sheds more than a little light into how Joseph Aranes managed to continue to work for Rasool for as long as he did (up to 2010, according to Smith’s affidavit). 7) In 2007 I was tracked down via an anonymous SMS sent from my life partner’s cell-phone by Bronwynn Eisbach of W. Argus, who asked to photograph and interview me for an article about me complaining to management of Uncle Tom’s Cabin at Bergvliet Sports Club about the Confederate flag – a powerful pro-slavery symbol/icon- being displayed on its walls and on t-shirts worn by members of the band and bar-staff. Although I declined to be interviewed and expressed a desire to avoid unnecessary publicity, Bronwynn remained enthusiastic and in a subsequent telephone call promised to let me know whether the article would be appearing in the Saturday or Sunday edition. For some reason, the article did not appear and I never did receive an explanation for this. Basically, Independent Newspapers does exactly as it pleases thanks to the widely held belief in journalistic circles that any attack on a newspaper or one of its journalists is in fact an attack on editorial independence, which according to this school-of-thought would almost certainly crumble into the sea if members of the public were allowed to see what goes on behind the scenes. Consequently, people like Joseph Aranes – who used to mock my unpublished letters from behind anonymous letters and anonymous SMS‘s that I long have suspected were written by him, and sometimes edited my letters in a manner that made me look uneducated and not too bright - are likely to be with us for many years to come. We should hang our heads in shame. mg.co.za/article/2012-02-10-brown-envelope-man-accused-againamabhungane.co.za/article/2014-01-23-ancs-air-force-targets-the-message politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=525718&sn=Detail Terence Grant Cape Town PS: The reader may be interested to note that Cllr Paddy Chapple recently claimed in an article that his friend, Paul Thesen had many years earlier been kept waiting on the operating-table, while the National Party debated in an emergency cabinet-meeting, the legality of a allowing a white person to receive a heart from a black donor (deciding eventually that an organ became neutral after being removed from the body). Several days later Paul Thesen’s sister poured cold water over Chapple’s version of events, stating that there had been no controversy over her brother receiving a heart from a black person and dismissing claims to the contrary as “disinformation, nothing more than mischievous lies and the figment over an over-active imagination.” iol.co.za/news/south-africa/eastern-cape/double-heart-transplant-man-found-dead-1.1627054 iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/cops-probe-transplant-patient-s-death-1.1627242#.UyxKtKiSyU4
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 17:21:08 +0000
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