Hacks can be a decadent lot but in the past two weeks we’ve had revelations of unbelievable skulduggery in newsrooms, where reporters and editors have been accused of twisting the news to suit politicians and, bizarrely, entertainment figures and the SABC.

The latest comes from Avusa’s public editor Thabo Leshilo, who wrote a thunderous column in the group’s titles at the weekend revealing that the Sowetan discovered last year that reporters were allegedly getting cash to write stories about the SABC and that a few weeks ago the Sunday Sun sent a “highly compromised” news editor quietly on his way. And then there was this from the redoubtable Leshilo:

Coming closer to home, it would be interesting to see how two complaints I took up about a classic case of conflict of interest involving the news editor of Sunday World pan out. The complaints, received in mid-August, were by small, independent recording companies claiming that the news editor, who is also the co-owner of a recording company, denies their artists publicity while those from his stable are constantly featured.

I have never seen such foot-dragging, buck-passing, obfuscation and abdication of responsibility on something so damaging to the credibility of a newspaper. Watch this space.

I presume that means he’s getting no joy out of the Sowetan managers in dealing with the complaints. Sies! But believe him when Thabo says “Watch this space”. He’s a good man and has attacked his new role as the company’s public editor with tenacious energy.

This all follows hot on the heels on revelations in the Mail & Guardian that a couple of Cape Town journalists — most notable a senior staff member at the Cape Argus — are accused of allegedly influencing and writing stories to suit the ends of political parties. Read all about it here.

If any of these allegations are true, the papers should move swiftly to investigate, hold disciplinary hearings and then they should name and shame the culprits. If it’s true, they have broken the trust that exists between the public and the papers and no newspaper can write credibly about corruption in our country unless they deal with this openly and decisively.

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Five things you need to know today

1. Top Gear’s The Stig has been revealed: it’s Michael Schumacher. Check out the vid below:

2. There much up in Media Land today. David Bullard has his High Court date with the Sunday Times.

3. And the Evil Empire in Ireland, parent company of the Independent newspapers in SA,  has come up with a discounted rights offer that is expected to be bought up by its lenders and two main shareholders though analysts question just how much cash Tony O’Reilly and Denis O’Brien have to hand. Read the Reuters story here.

4. IOL reports that Social Development Minister Edna Molewa has asked the Special Investigation Unit  to look into the release of R4.3-million to a Durban businessman from the SA Social Security Agency. Mabheleni Ntuli allegedly received R2.5-million from the agency for a lavish ANC pre-election party and R1.8-million to buy food parcels for villagers in KwaNxamalala, President Jacob Zuma’s birthplace in KZN. Read the story here.

5. The Times has a fun little story on former advocate Dirk Prinsloo, who was arrested recently for trying to rob a bank in Belarus. They’ve picked up an interesting snippet or two from the Belarus media that Prinsloo spent two weeks planning the robbery that involved the purchase of a toy gun and gas cannister. And he calls himself a South African! Where the AK47, dude? Read the story here.

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Pierre de Vos over at Constitutionally Speaking is reminding us every 30 days that President Jacob Zuma’s former financial advisor is still alive after getting paroled from choekie because, we were told, he was in the final stages of terminal illness.  That’s some tenacious, I-won’t-forget-even-if-you-do journalism, Pierre, and you’re law professor. Hacks, hang your heads in shame!

Today it’s been 110 days — just under four months. Shame, poor Mr Shaik — not only is the country waiting for him to peg quite soon but it must just be … killing … him to be keeping a low profile and hang out at home. He was quite the man about town in Durbs before he was convicted for fraud and corruption in 2005 and one would oft hear tales of him living it up at popular venues. Trendy Italian restaurant  Spiga d’Oro in Florida Road was such a popular haunt for Shaik that he got a linguine named after him.

Either he’s getting a lot of takeaway of his relieving his blood pressure by finding convivial eateries off the beaten track and out of sight  of canny Durban hacks like Paddy Harper and Sam Sole. Come on, you Durban hacks, there’s a story for the eating here. Put out some feelers in the restaurant, catering and caberet circuit. Even Mr Delivery might have a few tales to tell.

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So our new Transport Minister S’bu Ndebele  and former KZN transport MEC has “done the right thing” and returned the R1m Mercedes given to him as a thank-you gift by contractors in his home province. All well and good. But maybe not.

You can view this episode as the first test of our new administration’s principles – and quite frankly it has been left wanting. While Ndebele agreed to hand back the car what is disturbing is that he says that President Jacob Zuma and the ANC told him it was okay to keep the car as long as it was declared in terms of the executive code of ethics.

If this is true, I find it hard to marry this view with the commitments to clean government given by Zuma on the campaign trail.

The Ethics Institute’s Willem Landman puts it in perspective saying politicians are paid by the public, so it should not be necessary for them to receive gifts for doing their work well.

Cosatu claim Ndebele’s decision shows the new administration takes cracking down on corruption seriously. How so? They told him he could keep the car. Or am I missing something here?  Would he have even mentioned his “gift” if there hadn’t been a public outcry? I think it will be worth us having a good hard look at everything that has been declared by our new team in terms of the executive code of ethics. The public’s interpretation of what is correct may be a little different to their’s.

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“Was Mpshe’s Zuma decision plagiarised? The Hong Kong judge thinks
so!” (Grubstreet)

The James Myburgh piece that started all the trouble (Politicsweb)

“Double Standard or respect for the rule of law?” (Constitutionally
Speaking blog)

“NPA defends Mpshe” (IOL)

“NPA boss plagiarised judge in Zuma ruling”

The Democratic Alliance’s papers filed with the North Gauteng High
Court for a judicial review of the decision by the NPA to withdraw all
charges against Jacob Zuma

“Mpshe: Zuma decision not an acquittal”

The full statement by Mokotedi Mpshe

“Shaik, Thint and the 16 charges” (The Times)

“Zuma charges: Mpshe to meet Surty” (IOL)

“Fact: Zuma has a case to answer” (Constitutionally Speaking)

“Why would the tapes save Zuma?” (Michael Trapido on Thought Leader)

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On the eve of Jacob Zuma’s inauguration as South African President, the judge whose decision was key to dropping corruption charges against the ANC president has said that the country’s chief prosecutor made a mistake in law.

Mpshe

Acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority Mokotedi Mpshe last month controversially dropped a corruption prosecution against Zuma, saying the investigation had been tainted by an apparent conspiracy by former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy and ex-NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka. He used a case in Hong Kong as one of this key reasons for dropping the charges.

But the former Hong Kong judge behind that important decision, Justice Conrad Seagroatt, who earlier commented to Grubstreet on Mpshe’s plagiarism of his judgment, has now told me that Mpshe was wrong to use his judgment to justify dropping the charges against Zuma, due to be inaugurated as president of South Africa at the Union Buildings in Pretoria tomorrow.

He said, echoing the sentiments of other top SA prosecutors and widely reported in the local press, that he should have allowed the case to go to trial.

It is very strongly arguable that he should have let the trial process begin before a judge, leaving the aspect which seems to have dominated his proper role as the prosecutor (the old adage being a ‘prosecutors’ job is to prosecute) to be determined by the judge with [Mpshe] being entirely candid (as he should be) as to the conduct of the investigative and prosecuting agencies. It is easy from my position in the U.K. (or Hong Kong) to be critical of Mpshe’s statement but being as objective as I can, he really did not get to grips with the situation and seems to have made selective use of my judgement to try and put some beef into a statement which is rather short on substance.

Read the full story

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1. The NPA is saying it’s no biggie that its acting director Mokotedi Mpshe plagiarised parts of his historic decision to drop the charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma from a six-year-old ruling by a Hong Kong judge. Everyone’s got the story but here’s what the NPA sposkesman told The Star:

We are recognising that what we said was based on that judgment and we are in no way attempting to pass that ruling off as our own. We regret the oversight, but it in no way detracts from the decision that advocate Mpshe reached.

Well, that’s alright then Hacks, hack away! A sordid end to a scandalous saga. Read the original story by James Myburgh at Politics.web here. The comments are very entertaining.

2. Business Day reports that the ANC’s Fikile Mbalula is accusing former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils as one of the key plotters in a political conspiracy against Zuma. This after he took a few pot shots at former president Thabo Mbeki. What’s up, Fikile? You’re after Julius’s job? Read the story here.

3. Curiouser and curiouser. Business Day also has a story saying that a ministerial review commission report shows that Kasrils sought more oversight over intrusive methods of intelligence gathering in 2006. Which means he might have known about the spy tapes of telephone recordings between Bulelani Ngcuka and Leonard McCarthy (that led to the dropping of the charges against Zuma). The thot plickens. Read the story here.

4. The Times says that the SABC canned a Special Assignment show on political satire hours before it was due to be aired that was to feature interviews with cartoonist Zapiro.
Read the story here.

5. And suspended national police commissioner Jackie Selebi, who faces charges of corruption and defeating the ends of justice, has had his trial postponed to May 4 at the request of the state, which wants more time to prepare. Get to it, manne. You’re being paid with taxpayers’ money.

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1. The Judicial Service Commission hearing into allegations by Constitutional Court judges that Cape Judge President John Hlophe tried to influence them in a court proceeding regarding ANC president Jacob Zuma continues today. Hlophe didn’t attend yesterday’s hearing and his legal team staged a dramatic walkout. Quite unprecedented stuff going on here. Click here to read The Times story about yesterday’s preceedings. Today Justices Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta are testifying so that will be fascinating.

2. IOL has a story saying former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy has hit back over the spy tapes saga, saying it wasn’t him but Scorpions director Thanda Mngwengwe and NPA boss Mokotedi Mpshe who decided to prosecute Jacob Zuma in 2007. Read the story here.

3. The Competition Commission has singled out four companies and two industry associations for closer scrutiny in an investigation into anticompetitive practices in the pelagic fishing industry. Pelagic fish include herring, mackerel and sardines. The companies include Oceana and Premier Fishing. Read the Business Day story here.

4. And there are a couple of fun stories at News24 now that we’re all gatvol of the Zuma saga. Click here to read a fun little story about an unnamed (female) ANC councillor and an ID (female) supporter getting into a fight at a party in a Northern Cape dorpie, resulting in part of an ear actually being bitten off.

5. Also on News24, a story to lift the spirits of the squeezed middle class: the number of auctions at the top end of the property market is  on the rise as more wealthy SA homeowners struggle to keep up their bond payments. Ag shame, skatties, having to downgear from Constantia to Bergvliet. Click here to read the story.

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1. Packing for Perth or just another day in South Africa? Today it’s all about analysing the NPA’s decision to drop the charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma. One of the best comes Tim Cohen who wrote in the Daily Dispatch that the NPA decision shows us that the dream of South Africa having a special claim to the moral highground is dead.

We can claim no special place, no special rights, no special privileges. We are no longer miracle workers, just another grubby participant in the carnival of global politics, subject to base desires, enduring of haughty leaders, ever hopeful of finding just one decent person to carry our banner. Never before has the true nature of the South African State been so obvious, so plainly laid open to public view and so revealing for what it is. Much as we pretend otherwise, the hard truth is we live in a quasi-totalitarian State. And the rules that apply to single-party dominant States apply to us, too, though we pretend they don’t.

Read the full piece here.

2. Veteran investigative hack Sam Sole at the Mail & Guardian has an excellent, insightful piece on the tangled web around the arms deal involving Schabir Shaik and Zuma’s alleged role in it. Was Zuma Shaik’s puppet or a mercenary trying to squeeze as much money as he could out his old struggle buddy? It is well worth a read. Click here.

3. Senior Counsel Paul Hoffman says that the acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe’s concession that the prosecution team, led by Billy Downer, remains of the view that any decision in the matter ought to go court has laid the door wide open to civil litigation — including an urgent application for an order interdicting Zuma from accepting nomination for the presidency.

The fundamental error in his reasoning is that he is unable to point to any prejudice in the legal (as against political) sense that Zuma can possibly claim to have suffered as a consequence of being charged after the ANC’s Polokwane conference rather than before it. The subsidiary decision to withdraw charges against Thint (the arms dealer in question) highlights the fallacy in the reasoning of the NPA. Thint was obviously not a candidate at Polokwane and the two-week difference in timing of the arraignment of both accused is therefore neither here nor there .

Read the full piece here.

4. DA leader Helen Zille says on her Facebook page that party “is now finalising its plan to take the matter further through the legal system“.

5. A senior NPA official told The Times’s that the NPA is, in fact, going to prosecute former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka for violating sections of the NPA Act — rather than recommending an inquiry as indicated by Mpshe. Read the story here. And to throw my two cents in here, suspended police commissioner Jackie Selebi could now escape trial for corruption and defeating the ends of justice on the same basis as Zuma (because there was a political conspiracy against him) after being referred to in the transcripts of tapped phone conversation between Ngcuka and McCarthy. If you’ve forgotten what that’s about, click here to read the charge sheet at Financial Mail’s website.

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1. It’s Zuma’s day today, there’s no denying it. News24 has an interesting package and they were quick off the mark. Former president Thabo Mbeki says he does not wish to comment on the charges being dropped against ANC president Jacob Zuma. Click here to read the story.

2. And if you wondering where Zuma was during the announcement, he was at home in Forest Town in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs.

3. Meanwhile, his supporters have been celebrating in downtown Joburg while, online, the messages of support are pouring into the Friends of Jacob Zuma website. Here’s a sample:

Nondumiso M: My Father, my Hero, my President, I always believed in you and you are always in my prayers.The truth has finally set you free.
IF GOD IS FOR YOU, WHO CAN BE AGAINST YOU?

Boyce Mpempe: This day could never have brought so much joy, relief and a true sense of being South African. Although it took years and cost millions! VIVA Msholozi….We are with you and your family at this hour of celebration. Where are they? We have said it over and over again…Bulelani Ngcuka and his henchmen. We know who the commanader of this evil force is… Amagwala ndini!

Michael: Remember, they are not going to rest. They are going to try something else, they have resources. The ‘big man’- who is he? Serpent. Those who say, ‘the courts should have decided the matter’ forget that we are not to be ruled by courts. All the way from Ireland, Viva ANC Viva.

Click here to read more.

4. Opposition parties have slammed the NPA’s decision and the DA says it is taking legal advice. Read the story on Business Day here. It did appear to me as I listened with as much hear as I could muster while two children raced around the house that the NPA has left the door wide open to private litigation in this part of it’s decision:

The representations submitted by the legal representatives pertained to the following issues:
● The substantive merits
● The fair trial defences
● The practical implications and considerations of continued prosecution.
● The policy aspects militating against prosecution I need to state upfront that we could not find anything with regard to the first three grounds that militate against a continuation of the prosecution, and I therefore do not intend to deal in depth with those three grounds. I will focus on the fourth ground which

Read the full NPA statement here.

5. And former prosecutions boss Bulelani Ngcuka — who has been implicated in the NPA decision with former Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy of abusing the legal process — says he wants to study the NPA statement before commenting.

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