City Press, really?

By Ayanda Sitole

City Press’s attempt to appease the public by reporting that the incident in which self-titled Facebooker “Eugene Terrorblanche” posed over a black child in a hunting pose, was a family “joke”, is seriously disturbing.

The provocative image, published on the front page of last week’s Sunday Times, showed an unnamed white male with a rifle kneeling behind what seems like a “dead” black child in a hunting pose. The incident took place in Bloemhof, North West, in 2008.

City Press journalist Lucas Ledwaba begins by painting the picture of an isolated rural town untainted by the media frenzy over the image. He quotes two sources. The one, which lives in a neighbouring township close to Bloemhof, says “white people mind their own business … they only get angry with people who try to steal their diamonds”.

This gives the impression that there is no underlying racism in the community.

He then reports that the parents of the child in the picture are dropped off at their interview by a relative of “Terrorblanche”. They engage in an exchange where the comments of the parents seem peculiar.

The father of the child explains that when the incident unfolded his child was sleeping. “Terrorblanche” found it “amusing” that the child looked like he was dead and he gave consent to take the photograph. He goes on to say that “Terrorblanche” is a “cool person” who loves his child.

The parents are concerned about “Terrorblanche’s” safety and ask why they would stay on a farm for 14 years if their employer was a racist.

Do people who experience racism in the workplace always have the choice to leave?

The father assures that the incident was just a “joke” and quickly forgotten. Later in the article he relays that at a year-end braai attended by the two families the roles were reversed, the child was given a rifle to pose with while “Terrorblanche” played dead.

If this is true surely there are children’s rights issues that need to be addressed here?

Another thing is the ethical issues concerning the Sunday Times causing mass hysteria by refuelling a story that was followed up by the Mail & Guardian in 2008.

The latest M&G report was picked up by news agency AFP as well as The Washington Post.

Why Ledwaba wrote this article as a passive observer is startling, surely he could have been more critical of the underlying issues presented before him.

Ayanda Sitole is a photographer, interning at the Mail & Guardian as a reporter. Her beat includes reporting on children.