Sunday Independent's Persistent Online Lies

On Sunday 23rd April the Sunday Independent published an incorrect and misleading article about the "It's Time" prayer event near Bloemfontein. A million people showed up to pray for the country. Their freelance correspondent Sidwell Guduka wrote a piece that was published in the paper and online. The story was picked up and repeated by numerous other smaller online web sites.
I was not at the event, so I am not able to comment on the overall accuracy of the story, but there was one obvious and glaring inaccuracy that could and should have been fact-checked by the Sunday Independent newsroom. The sentence "He touched down in his private jet just a stone’s throw from the area where the event was held." Angus Buchan doesn't own a jet. How many farmers do?
The Cape Argus went a step further, combining two separate articles into a single mishmash and making out that Angus Buchan is a "bogus pastor".
So I wrote to the Press Council of South Africa to complain about both of them. It seems that Independent Newspapers has withdrawn from this august body, and has its own internal (but useless) complaints procedure. I forwarded two complaints to <complaints@inl.co.za> and have only received a reply to one of them from their "Group Ombudman". They clearly don't feel that correcting misleading information is any kind of priority, since after 5 weeks all they have done is publish this apology in the print edition of the Sunday Independent:

In my opinion, the line "This is not the case" doesn't clarify anything. It doesn't make it clear whether he didn't arrive in his private jet (but still has a private jet), or whether he arrived in a private jet belonging to someone else, or whether he arrived at all. Very sloppy writing. Their take is:

"This is not the case" means exactly that: that Buchan didn't arrive by private jet/ doesn't own a private jet/ didn't arrive by aircraft on the farm.

So which is it? They clearly don't know or don't care. But we know he was at the venue, along with a million other people.
My attempts to get in touch with Jovial Rantao, their current Group Ombudsman have largely failed. His landline 011-633-2180 voice mailbox is not set up so you can't leave a message. His emails (with one exception) go unanswered. I eventually called his cell phone number 082-446-6008 and he rambled on about how 5 weeks was a long time to deal with the complaint but there were "circumstances" that caused the delay. He claimed to be "unaware" of the fact that the online article was still not corrected. He claimed that someone else reads the emails to <complaints@inl.co.za> but when I challenged him on a mail sent directly to his own mailbox on Tuesday he was "unaware" of it.
Clearly the reputation of innocent parties is not a high priority for a newspaper group that produces 21% of South African print media (by circulation). They may claim that "the unflinching truth" is their quest, but accuracy and clarity of thought are obviously not part of the package.

The irony is that this article appeared right next to the sloppy "apology" they printed. Sad. In the meantime the "Bogus Pastor" accusation has still not been dealt with. It seems that no good deed will go unpunished by lacklustre and sloppy writers.

Sunday Independent's Persistent Online Lies@IOL @JovialRantao @RitchKev @SidwellGuduka @angusbuchan https://t.co/8nKBrtszxD

— Donn Edwards (@donnedwards) June 1, 2017

Update 23rd July 2017: Instead of correcting the online article, IOL just deleted it. So much for journalistic integrity. The Weekend Argus article has still not been corrected or apologized for. Sigh.

Who do you follow?

The Seven Way King

I heard a recording of this famous sermon "Seven Way King" (aka That's My King) as spoken by Dr. S.M. Lockridge in Chicago in 1976. The audio is slightly edited for a better flow in the video. Now it has been turned into two inspiring videos. Watch them and marvel.

Orwell Warned Us, But Will We Listen?

I just finished watching this documentary and I must say it is an eye opener, not only in the light of the political scandals in the UK over Murdoch and the phone hacking scandal, but also in the light of Wikileaks and the treatment of Bradley Manning. Even though it was made in 2003, Orwell Rolls in his Grave is even more relevant today than it was then. Unfortunately the news is less relevant, and getting even less relevant by the day. That's why they don't even understand what "Occupy Wall Street" is all about.

LM Radio now in Joburg

In the dark days of the SABC broadcast monopoly and censorship, one bright light on the dial was LM Radio, broadcast from Lourenço Marques, now called Maputo, in Mozambique. In fact, it was one of the earliest independent stations on the continent. LM Radio was on the air from 1936 until 1975 and played a very important role in shaping the style and content of broadcasting in South Africa.
Now it's back in Joburg, and this time on 97.2 FM (Cofifi Community Radio Westbury). Broadcasting started about a week before Christmas. Instead of having to fiddle with short wave tuners (my dad had a Supersonic tuner with little stickers on the dial) you can just use an FM radio, or listen to the streaming signal from the internet. It streams at around 17megabytes per hour, which is manageable even on a capped account.
You can hear an audio history and some of the old jingles on the LMRadio.org site.
Update: I also discovered the station on the "Internet Radio" app on my Nokia phone. Just do a country search and it's listed under "Mozambique". The 32kb stream sounds pretty good on my phone.

Why is the USA scared of a single soldier?

Only in the USA would media corporations studiously ignore the plight of a single soldier while feeding greedily on the information he allegedly gave them. Only in the USA would they label him a traitor at the same time. Even President Obama believes he is guilty, and gives him the Gitmo treatment. I guess that's what happens when you watch Fox "news".
I think Manning is a hero, as does much of the free world. This segment is from the AJE show called "Listening Post", which tries to monitor and analyse the way the media works.

6,418 Days of Freedom. Now it's gone in a puff of smoke

On 27th April 1994, South Africa elected the first democratic government in our history. 6418 days later, that same government, despite the outspoken opposition of newspapers, trade union groups, civil society organisations and prominent individuals, a bunch of criminals (also known as MPs) passed legislation that effectively wipes out the ability of journalists to tell the truth about politicians and public figures.
We wouldn't have learnt about the corrupt dealings of people like Mac Maharaj and his boss' "financial advisor", Shabir Shaik, and his boss, Jacob Zuma. The dubious lifestyle of Julius "fork and knife" Malema would not have been so easy to expose, and the Travelgate affair, where these criminals (also known as MPs) defrauded the taxpayer out of airline tickets and other travel perks.
Why did they pass the bill? For reasons of "State Security" (puleez!). The same reason put Nelson Mandela behind bars for decades, and had thousands of ANC members tortured and killed under Apartheid. But now that members of the ANC are busy plundering the country of its wealth for their own pockets, their lip service to press freedom has been exposed, as they try to hide their nepotism, cronyism and corruption.
What the idiots in government forget is that there is not such thing as a secret on the internet. So it will be interesting to see how they plan to prosecute WikiLeaks or other international whistleblower sites when information does get out. And the suppression of it in the local media won't last long when they can point to other sources out of the reach of our tinpot dictatorship.
What worries me is that under this "cloak of secrecy" the civil servants and low-level party officials will believe they can get away with more corruption than before. Only the "bigger fish" will be exposed while all of the "smaller fish" will gobble up the resources of the country, and the poor will continue to suffer.

Mac Maharaj ducking and diving

This is the calibre of our presidential spokesman, who "stands accused of receiving millions in bribes from French weapons maker Thales" according to the front page of the Sunday Times, and who wants to prevent newspapers from publishing the "lies" he is supposed to have made in an official enquiry, presumably under oath. This interview comes ahead of the imminent passage through parliament of a bill designed to curb press freedom. Welcome to Azania, the banana republic, and Mac looks like the chief banana at this point.
Update: Tuesday 22, from EWN:

Presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj on Tuesday said he firmly believes that a society without a free media will not be able to have rational debates.
He addressed the National Press Club in Pretoria amid claims that he received bribes during the arms deal.
Maharaj had said it would be illegal for the Mail&Guardian newspaper to publish documents relating to a Section 28 inquiry held in 2001.
He said his position was very clear.
“I have maintained the view that I have been not involved in any bribery, corruption and in the awarding of those two tenders and that’s my consistent position,” he said.

Stop paying lip service to media freedom when your party is about to reintroduced Apartheid's media restrictions, Mac! And don't think we haven't noticed the diversionary tactics, either.

Update Monday 28th: According to this article in the Daily Maverick:

In its original 2007 article, City Press reported that Maharaj and his wife had told the Scorpions, among other details, that they had no offshore bank accounts in Switzerland; and had received no money from Schabir Shaik, or his companies. However, this flies in the face of investigative work by City Press, as well as the Sunday Times and the M&G, showing that money was paid from French weapons manufacturer Thompson (now Thales) into Zarina Maharaj's Swiss bank account, via none other than Shaik.
Maharaj, meanwhile, speaking to the National Press Club on Tuesday, said: “I have maintained the view that I have not been involved in any bribery, corruption, and in the awarding of those two tenders. That's my consistent position. It doesn't change.” The tenders refer to the R2.5 billion N3 toll road tender; and the R265 million credit-card driver's licence tender, both of which were awarded when Maharaj was the minister of transport. A company owned by Shaik was part of the consortium that won the former tender, while Thales benefited from the latter.
Throughout the last ten days, Maharaj has consistently refused to answer the question of whether he lied to the Scorpions. It's probably advisable that he doesn't comment on this unless or until he is forced to – lying to a Section 28 inquiry is a criminal offence, and he could face 15 years in prison.

It all becomes a lot clearer: he's blustering to cover his arse, and he should be fired for bringing the Presidency into disrepute, along with his boss.

Time to End the Wikleaks Banking Blockade

This tweet just in from Wikileaks:

Support WikiLeaks - you can now donate with an SMS | http://shop.wikileaks.org/donate#dmobile (check it works where you live using dropdown menu)

It works fine in South Africa, and I donated R20 for now. Will donate more soon. Watch the video and fight back at Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and the entire wunch of bankers trying to blockade Wikileaks.

What Does it Cost to Change the World? from WikiLeaks

See: Broke Wikileaks Halts Publication to Raise Money at Gizmodo.

No News is Bad News for AlJazeera English

AlJazeera English is my primary source of TV news. Sometimes I can even watch it online, depending on the availability of bandwidth. This morning I noticed that something was going wrong: there was no news coming out of their Doha studio. Was AJE under attack? Was the staff on strike or being censored? All kinds of scenarios went through my mind.
After all, the station is owned by the state of Qatar, and they recently changed senior management, so anything was possible. What strikes me as most odd is that they, as a news outlet, did not see fit to tell their audience what was going on. This is bad news, especially for a company that has numerous twitter accounts and Facebook pages. It's bad for credibility.
On the one hand the fact that their primary studio isn't working may not count as "news", but there wasn't even an explanation on their web site, and tweets to their twitter news account went unanswered. A tweet to their @AJStream account, supposedly their flagship social media program, wasn't addressed directly. Weird.
I eventually got a reply from Alan Fisher, one of their best journalists: "significant tech issues I believe". Why couldn't the station itself say that? Why is it afraid of admitting it is having a technical hitch? It's not like you aren't going to notice if you switch on the TV looking for a 30 minute news program and you get a documentary instead. Instead of getting my "morning news fix" at 9am (News Live Doha), I eventually got it at 3pm (Newshour from London) instead. That's when I got the clue that the Doha centre was having difficulties.
Note to AJE: Just put a note on your program schedule when you cancel programs. Viewers will appreciate your honesty and trust you more. Hiding stuff doesn't build trust or credibility.

CNN's WikiWars is shoddy journalism

I used to think CNN was pretty good at news coverage. Unfortunately now it is just a broadcaster, rather than a news organisation. It hasn't stooped quite as low as Fox News, but it's definitely heading in that direction.
CNN Presents is supposed to be one of their premier documentary shows, where they show "serious" documentaries. This piece falls far short, with inaccuracies and misleading information galore. What's worse is that it is obviously pro-Military and pro-America and borders on being a hatchet job on Julian Assange. The entire show playlist is available here, and the full transcript is available on the CNN web site.

The sad thing about this "documentary" is that the parts it leaves out are quite serious. And the whole "Collateral Murder" segment tries to justify the gunning down of civilians in a civilian neighbourhood by claiming that it was a "combat situation".
The video shows yet another US Military f*** up: they do it all the time. Of course the "general" and the "marine" won't admit that on TV: I think they have lost the plot. Here is another report, this time by AlJazeera English:

Compare the poor quality of the CNN program with this one, which is about the same length but contains far more detail and useful insights:

If you want to know more about Wikileaks, Iraq and Afghanistan, read "Obama's Wars" by Bob Woodward; "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy" by David Leigh et al; "The Longest War: America and Al-Qaeda Since 9/11" by Peter Bergen; and "Bradley Manning - Truth and Consequences" by Greg Mitchell. Only the last book is not available in audiobook format.

Update: Unfortunately WikiLeaks used a previously disclosed password when they released their "insurance" file. So now anyone can read all those cables in unredacted form. That is monumentally stupid, and was obviously a serious security error. Assange cannot blame it on the Guardian because the data file was released to the public by WikiLeaks, not the Guardian. Relying on journalists to understand computer security or keep a secret is never a clever move.
Update 2 Sept: WikiLeaks has now posted all the unredacted cables. This is an act of monumental stupidity, endangering the lives of activists around the world, not to mention making the case against Bradley Manning much worse. I think its a desperate act, but it is totally irresponsible.

The WikiLeaks War

I found this interesting interview by Riz Khan formerly of CNN and now working at AlJazeera, called The WikiLeaks War. It would be great if other media were less shrill and spineless and asked more difficult questions like this.
What annoys me the most about the whole Wikileaks saga is how the US government can come out with rubbish about them "breaking the law" but they don't accuse the New York Times or the Guardian of precisely the same "crimes"? Why don't PayPal, MasterCard and Visa refuse to do business with these companies? What right do they have to arbitrarily cut off one of their customers? If they can do it to Wikileaks, they can do it to Google. A chilling thought.

Press Freedom is priceless. For everything else there's MasterCard ;-(
Update: Private Manning in solitary confinement for 6 months. That's the kind of thing that used to happen under Apartheid. Now it happens in the USA.