Lucky for President Jacob Zuma and First Lady Nompumelelo Ntuli Zuma that the World Cup came along and shifted the country’s attention from the recent allegations of infidelity in the extended presidential household.

Or perhaps the timing of that remarkable letter (claiming that MaNtuli, as she is known, had had an affair with a bodyguard who then committed suicide) faxed to newsrooms around the country is auspicious. The eve of a big international event such as a World Cup is a choice time to embarrass the president if  that was the intention and it’s possible that those behind the anonymous letter did not realise how the soccer jamboree would swamp SA’s media to the extent that it has.

This shouldn’t surprise us as all political leaders have enemies and Zuma would have more than most, given the bitter battle he waged and promises he made to get the top job. And of course, information is seldom leaked to journalists without an agenda. But this was all looking suspiciously like a smear campaign into which the press were suckered with abandon until it also started looking like it was true.

Though the mainstream press have found it hard to nail down independent corroboration of the allegations, I’m convinced after speaking to Eric Ndiyane  – the editor and news editor of the KwaZulu-Natal isiZulu-language newspaper Ilanga that broke the story – that it is indeed true.

Ndiyane said the paper found three independent sources to corroborate the allegation that MaNtuli had an affair with bodyguard Phinda Thomo, who then allegedly took his own life after the affair was discovered. (If true, this puts the paternity of MaNtuli’s unborn child in doubt. Her pregnancy was confirmed recently.)

Like everybody else, Ilanga was faxed the letter on Monday, May 31, and it spent the next couple of days nailing down independent corroboration so that the paper could break the story on Thursday, June 3.  Later on that day the Johannesburg-based national Sunday paper, City Press, took the unusual step (for City Press) of putting a story up on their website, which then forced everybody’s else hand. Except for the Mail & Guardian, almost everyone, his blog and his dog piled gleefully into the story, citing Ilanga though few had their own independent sources for the story or had probably even read the original in isiZulu.

This raises a number of interesting questions about journalism in South Africa. Was it irresponsible for those to publish the allegations on the say-so of someone else? Can the president’s wives expect some measure of privacy? Was it necessary to name the bodyguard? While you can’t defame the dead, the hurt caused to his family would have been great but, on the other hand, what kind of privacy can a presidential bodyguard expect if he is allegedly caught having an affair with one of the first ladies?

Having spoken to Ndiyane, City Press editor Ferial Haffajee and Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes about how they covered the story, I can say the decision to publish was not taken lightly at any of these newspapers… CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN, CALLED “BACKSTORY”, AT WITS UNIVERSITY’S JOURNALISM.CO.ZA

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. Media24 has shut down My Week magazine with immediate effect this week and there’s talk in freelance hack cricles that Avusa’s Avocado and Real Simple, owned 8 Ink Media (jointly owned by Media 24 and a family trust), are going the same way at the end of the month. All rather depressing, this, as it means people out of work. Sterkte mense! It’s time to start your own blogs.

2. The SABC’s chairman, Kanyi Mkhonza, has resigned after a board meeting. Click here to read the story at the M&G.

3. Cosatu says President Jacob Zuma told them he was willing to serve two terms. Read the Business Day story here.

4. IOL has a fun story about Facebook being abuzz with discussing Zuma’s wives, debating who is the best and most suited to being first lady. Read it here.

5. And if you think there’s a snake in the grass, you’re right. The Times has a story saying that all the constuction work in Gauteng has upset snakes and is sending them slithering into the peace of suburban yards. Click here to read.

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1. Here’s a choice bit of observation at today’s cabinet pow-wow. IOL reports that DA leader Helen Zille, who is at the cabinet lekgotla as Western cape premier, was spotted in the parking lot at the Presidential Guesthouse in Pretoria texting messages into her cellphone — while the other delegates were inside with their phones locked in a cubby hole. Click here to read. The reporter wonders if Zille is worried about having her cellphone bugged. It seems the mood was rather jolly in the boardroom and Zille had a friendly chat with President Jacob Zuma before hand. This after she caused a media storm when she called the president a “selfconfessed womaniser” and has broken protocol by scheduling her state of the province address before Zuma’s state of the nation speech.

2. Zuma’s spokesman says that his wives are all equal and he hasn’t made a choice about first lady. Read the story here at The Times.

He hasn’t decided that only one is the first lady. He will decide at any given time who will go with him. He may go with all three of them.

That will make for a jolly little tea party with Ms Clinton, when Team Zuma go to Washington.

3. It’s official — we’re in recession. But if you’re thinking state spending will get us out of it, then read this opinion piece by Business Day. It turns out that state spedning is already the chief ingredient to growth, with yesterday’s figures from Stats SA showing  construction, government services and personal services is being supported by the official purse.

4. There are a few companies doing well out of our straightened circumstances. Mr Price has reported a  24% increase in  clothing sales to R4.5-billion for the year to the end of March as consuners are shopping more at the cheaper end of the market. The chain store has opened 58 new stornes in this period but also said even they were expecting  the year ahead to be “challenging”. Read the IOL story here.

5. And talking about the economy, here’s an excellent piece by veteran reporter Hilary Joffe at Business Day anaylsing Eskom’s application for a 34% tarriff increase. Read it and you’ll see why there no reason for the public to pay for the parastatal’s need to invest in new infrastructure. Here’s one fact that staggered me: The R60-billion the government is giving Eskom this year is the first equity injection from the state  since Eskom was established in 1923!

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Five things you need to know about SA

1. It’s all about analysing the cabinet today. Of the big mainstream media websites, Business Day has the most comprehensive analysis. It’s main story focuses on the choice of trade unionist Ebrahim Patel to head the Department of Economic Development. Patel will be at the centre of economic policy creation, says Business Day, possible even eclipsing the role traditionally played by the finance minister. Read the full story here and clicks to further analysis.

2. The Times also has quite a bit of analysis and has done something a little different, with an audio clip of their well informed political editor Sthembiso Msomi dissecting the cabinet. Click here to go to the audio clip.

3. If IOL and News24 have analysis, they’re hiding their light under a bushel because I couldn’t spot it. IOL, however, does have an inauguration story from the left field: about the Durban businessman who made the news last week for allegedly attempting to bribe an official to get a better seat at the inauguration. Not to be deterred, he threw a lavish bash in honour of JZ last night that went on into the wee hours. Click here for the full story. And there I was watching Tom & Jerry 2 with my four-year-old. Clearly, I’m not moving in the right circles.

4. If, like me you were out hunting down a Mother’s Day present on Saturday morning and you missed the inauguration on TV, click here to read the full speech. Seems like a pretty good speech to me and sending out all the right signals. We’ll see if JZ and the cabinet can live up to it.

5. And on the first lady issue, 5fm DJ has this to say over on his blog:

Zizakele “Makhumalo” Zuma is our first lady.
She was introduced to the nation on Saturday.
The other two wives don’t mind, after a compromise.
The one wife is in charge of the PVR, and wife number three has first dibs on all the gifts.

Very witty, Wilde. Click here to go to his blog.

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. Brett Kebble’s art collection of 133 works goes on auction tonight. It is estimated it will raise R100-million. Wowee! That’s a big number of an SA  art auction. But to put this in perspective, says Business Day, it won’t get anywhere near meeting the debts the late Mr Dodgy Dealer, who  illegally sold R2bn worth of assets belonging to companies he controlled and used the proceeds partly to curry favour with the ANC. SARS is  claiming R183m alone from his estate in unpaid taxes. Read the excellent Business Day story about one of kebble’s oddest legacies.

2. And also at Business Day, there is gloomy story saying that Absa figures show that the average price of homes has dropped the most in 23 years because of the sagging economy. Small houses faired the best, big houses the worst. Read the full story here.

3. Independent Newspaper got 150 SMS bids for the Julius Malema puppet that starred in the withdrawn Nando’s TV advert, says IOL. The two highest bids came from the Nando’s London office and a South African named Leo Chetty (they both bid R25 000), the latter in the hope that Malma will become president one day. Read the story here.

4. By all accounts our president in waiting, Jacob Zuma, was charming and pithy in Parliament yesterday and we hear that will have three first ladies at the plush inauguration in Pretoria on Saturday. Read the News24 story here. But I’m  bit confused here. Doesn’t he only have two wives? (And two girlfirends?) My liewe aarde! South Afirca is going to be an odd place with the Big Chief tearing up the rule book right from the beginning.   You got to hand it to him for goedspa though!

5. And those spy taps are still a hot item. IOL has a story saying that Zuma is not keen to release all of them to the public.  This a wee porblem as police bosses have promised suspended police commisioner Jackie Selebi all the tapes to use in his defence and the DA had applied for copies of all documents and evidence that the NPA had before him when he decided to drop the charges against Zuma as part of the party’s court challenge to the decision. Zuma’s lawyers, meanwhile,  have  demanded that the DA be ordered to hand over R1.2-million in security before it is allowed to legally challenge the NPA decision. This little boomerang is on the arc. Read the story here.

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