Grovel time

Although I never in my Spielbergian imagination thought I’d have to post a blog like this, I apologise sincerely for any offence I caused with comments in my blog headlined: “Working on that pig’s ear, baby“.

It was not my intention to hurt my young colleagues and I acknowledge I used some harsh turns of phrase. But I am a journalist — and a very concerned one at that — and everything I wrote is as true and as valid today as it has been for the desperately frustrating 18 months since we (for I am joyously not alone) first raised them.

And repeatedly did so … until I was arbitrarily suspended on Thursday night for “your article published in the online edition of Mail & Guardian on 14/11/2007″.

I had numerous chats with groups of young reporters on Thursday who’d read the blog. “You insulted us,” they said. I said I was sorry and that it wasn’t my intention. That my intention was to bring into the open the rising shortcomings and plummeting standards in the hope of stimulating meaningful debate. You see, most times these “things” are spoken about in deliberately aimless circumlocution behind closed doors. That’s the culture, and behind those doors is where it stays.

“We really try hard to write good stuff,” said one youngster on Thursday, “But if only we got training or help or mentoring.”

“Like you used to help us when you worked nights,” another said. “But now we get nothing. We’re just told to ‘write like this’ and so we do like we’re told so we don’t get into trouble. But no one ever helps us get it right.”

And that kinda summed it up for me as I thought back to a brilliant idea Independent Newspapers had some years ago of appointing editorial coaches — one-on-one, step-for-step mentoring. At least one of the “graduates” of that project blogs now on Thought Leader. Others are senior and damned good reporters on other papers. And I’m very proud I played a part in their success. But the project was birth-strangled by some Jozi bean counter with more bucks than brains.

Lest I be accused of not putting my credentials where my criticisms are — a detailed one-on-one skills-development project I tendered specifically to address my colleagues’ desperate needs, called “The Hen and Chicken Project”, now lies mouldering in File 13 somewhere in the dank caverns of human resources. Someday some future Indiana Jones will find it and say: “Shit, this was a great idea. Wonder why these people never used it. Hmm, no wonder they’re extinct.”

Not one of the young reporters or battle-fatigued subs I spoke to on Thursday thought the pallour of my epidermis had anything to do with it. “We know you, Llew,” said one and gave me a sisterly hug. They know the difference in our skins has nothing to do with the blog at all.

The race card is reserved as the nettle-rash reaction for the new Bra-bonders. If I offended them, tough. If I offended the lazy, the inept, the selfish, the ego-maniacal, the saboteurs who seem hell-bent on brutalising the exquisite craft of journalism to suit their own ends, who see vile racist plots behind every story in which a white person is mentioned and those who rose to power on the strength of their “struggle credentials” — well, bra, if the sandals fit, wear them.

The rest of us who believe in professionalism, integrity, honesty, fair comment, balanced reporting, accuracy, freedom of expression and compelling writing will stick to our guns. After all, that’s why we became journalists, and while the likes of Essop Pahad, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Charles Nqakula and, yes, even Thabo Mbeki rate denialism, filibustering, deceit and hypocrisy higher than humility, leadership, the truth and courage, I guess we’ll stay journalists. I echo Ferial’s sentiments on freedom of expression in her blog on Friday.

It should be a source of grave concern, no, profound anguish that small cliques of bitter individuals with immense power can dictate whether a newspaper sets the bar higher and higher deadline by deadline. Or whether they grab it by the hair, take it into the bedroom, lock the door and …

And then swear it to silence.

We as the news media should be ashamed that we see nothing wrong with pillorying Sneaky Snuki and Dilly Dali, but keep our dirty little secrets silent. We gleefully splash Britney’s punani across the front page, but cannot debate our very serious problems in the open. Okay, so Rapport canned Deon Maas’s column — but, right or wrong, that was after a huge hooha by its readers. Maybe the axing of a multi-award-winning senior revise sub-editor and former acting night editor for telling it like it is in a blog could set a precedent.

And anyway, shooting the messenger didn’t help Tricky Dicky, Mama Jackey, Tony Yengeni or apartheid itself. It doesn’t seem to be offering much solace to JZ or Nkola Motata either. But there you are.

No matter where it happens, injustice, dishonesty, duplicity and discrimination should be held to account. Whether in the streets of Khutsong or the newsrooms of papers that are read and trusted by millions, poor performance and lack of service delivery should be talked about without fear or favour. And where solutions exist, they should be applied.

My comments — though the powers refuse to say which exactly and a few fevered sycophants haven’t even read the blog — seem to have really offended a tiny feared bloc of power brokers reaching for the top. And they have exacted a harsh vengeance that has every nasty nuance of what the apartheid regime used to do to us on the Rand Daily Mail a quarter of a century ago. As most good folk said to me on Thursday: “I read it and what’s the fuss about?”

And, what’s worse, is the reaction shows we haven’t come that far at all.