Ruling by the Press Ombudsman
9 April 2015
This ruling is based on the written submissions of the national spokesperson of the DA, Mr Marius Redelinghuys, and those of Susan Smuts, legal editor of the Sunday Times newspaper.
Complaint
Redelinghuys is complaining about a story in the Sunday Times of 22 March 2015, headlined Heated Helen Zille makes a hashtag of own party’s policy, as well as a sidebar headlined Courting controversy, 140 characters at a time.
He complains that the journalist:
· quoted him out of context and deliberately distorted, misrepresented as well as unduly summarized the issue; and
· made no attempt to obtain his comment or any clarification about posts on Twitter, or about any potential disciplinary action stemming from it.
The texts
The story, written by Gareth Van Onselen, said a Twitter war had broken out between journalists, analysts and DA leader Helen Zille after the Western Cape government had decided not to renew its subscription to the Cape Times newspaper. “It represents the latest online conflict involving the DA leader and has raised questions about the party’s social media policy and how it is applied, in particular, to Zille herself.”
In the sidebar the DA’s social media policy was quoted as requiring that posts from its representatives were not to be insulting, derogatory or insensitive. “[R]ecent posts appear to test that rule. It is not known if any of them resulted in disciplinary action, as the DA refuses to divulge that information.”
The text contained three such posts, including one by Redelinghuys, who reportedly called for whites to admit their inherent racism, saying: “[Whites] can start by changing your ‘I’m not racist, but…’ into ‘I’m racist, but…”
Analysis
Quoted out of context, etc.
Redelinghuys complains that Van Onselen quoted him out of context, and that he deliberately distorted, misrepresented and unduly summarized the issue.
Smuts denies this.
My considerations
The article does not mention Redelinghuys; the sidebar does. It quoted a post by him, dated 8 December 2014 (as cited above). If this post was “out of context”, surely it cannot be the newspaper’s fault. The post was in the public domain, and Sunday Times was justified in re-publishing it. It is as simple as that.
No comment asked
Redelinghuys complains that the journalist made no attempt to obtain his comment or clarification about posts on Twitter or any potential disciplinary action stemming from it.
Smuts says the Sunday Times did not ask Redelinghuys for comment as the story was about the DA’s social media policy and that it spoke to the DA’s James Selfe (chairman of the party’s federal executive) – whose comment was published.
“Mr Redelinghuys was in any case not the subject of critical reportage as envisaged in the code. All we did was quote his social media posts and pose a question of whether they breached the DA’s social media policy that said posts should not be of ‘an insulting nature, derogatory or insensitive’… We submit that we were entitled to pose the question – it is a (very mild) fair comment.”
My considerations
The newspaper’s arguments are valid and no further deliberation is necessary.
Finding
The complaint is dismissed.
Appeal
Our Complaints Procedures lay down that within seven working days of receipt of this decision, either party may apply for leave to appeal to the Chairperson of the SA Press Appeals Panel, Judge Bernard Ngoepe, fully setting out the grounds of appeal. He can be contacted at Khanyim@ombudsman.org.za.
Johan Retief
Press Ombudsman