Noseweek: essential reading for the cynical

I’ve been a fan of Noseweek for years. It has consistently picked up stories others wouldn’t touch and followed them with dogged persistence. Occasionally, as in the case of Brett Kebble, a Noseweek story will eventually enlarge into a national saga that runs and runs. But for the most part, you’ll find things in here you won’t find anywhere else.

(There was a time when the editor promoted a weird HIV/Aids denialist stance in its pages, but thankfully he seems to have moved on.)

Noseweek is recommended reading for anyone who automatically associates corruption with Africa and Africans. In fact, as this periodical demonstrates repeatedly and depressingly, corruption, hypocrisy and venality of the most repulsive sort know no bounds. Whites, blacks, Indians, coloureds, Christians, Muslims, Afrikaners, Jews, English-speakers, Xhosas, Zulus — they’re all in there. Granted, a substantial proportion of them are lawyers – Noseweek gets much of its dirt from court papers – but it’s a reminder that anybody is capable of being complete and utter scum, regardless of colour or creed.

So you’ll find stories about developers railroading environmental guidelines in order to build shopping centres and golf courses in sensitive coastal villages; tax dodge schemes involving respectable South African banks; a Durban traffic police sergeant who has a R15-million mansion in La Lucia (on his salary!!), a Pretoria attorney who defrauded Nedbank and his firm of over R26-million.

One of my favourite quotes relates to stories of unscrupulous developers on the Cape coast in the December issue: “Racists to the core, these barbarians would love nothing more than to create little white homelands at the foot of Africa … In their hearts they know that their head-in-the-mud attempts to create an Orania op See are doomed and the game is over. Eventually they’ll join their children in Australia and New Zealand, but until then they’ll screw this country for every cent they can.”

This is not a periodical for those who continue to believe – in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary — in the fundamental decency of human beings.

The stories can be riveting, though. The latest issue details insurance billionaire Douw Steyn’s appalling behaviour during a court appearance in Wynburg, Sandton (allegedly reeking of alcohol, Steyn reportedly emptied a bottle of Evian over his head, then hacked off the sleeves of his shirt and sawed off his trousers at the knee). The Stuart/Sylvia Ireland divorce case covered in the November issue, later followed up by the Sunday Times, is gloriously prurient. And I like the tonality of the writing: always refreshingly frank, not afraid to call a digging implement a spade. Not a sterretjie in sight when the occasion calls for the use of four letter words (yes, sometimes it does), by which I take it that Noseweek readers are regarded as grown up enough to handle strong language.

In a media industry in which it is difficult for many publications to survive for months, let alone years (I believe that in my absence from South Africa, both Maverick and Empire bit the dust) Noseweek’s continued survival is a remarkable achievement. Advertising is clearly not a major source of revenue for them, judging by the number of ads they carry: small space ads for the most part and two FPFC ads for whisky, which you’ll probably want to drink after reading your copy. This is probably just as well, as any publication too reliant on advertising will find its editorial integrity placed in jeopardy; after all, Noseweek has investigated under the carpets of virtually every single major corporation in the land.

I look forward to more dishing of the dirt in 2009. Long may Martin Welz and his contributors continue to give us the news we’re not supposed to know.