(FXI/IFEX) – The following is an abridged version of a 29 August 2006 FXI letter to the executive staff of Media24 publishing group: 29 August 2006 Hein Brand, Managing Director, Media24, hbrand@media24.com Jan Malherbe, Media24 Newspapers Chief Executive, jmalherbe@media24.com Neil Jansen, Human Resources General Manager, Media24, njansen@media24.com Dear Messrs Brand, Malherbe and Jansen Re: Media24’s […]
(FXI/IFEX) – The following is an abridged version of a 29 August 2006 FXI letter to the executive staff of Media24 publishing group:
29 August 2006
Hein Brand, Managing Director, Media24, hbrand@media24.com
Jan Malherbe, Media24 Newspapers Chief Executive, jmalherbe@media24.com
Neil Jansen, Human Resources General Manager, Media24, njansen@media24.com
Dear Messrs Brand, Malherbe and Jansen
Re: Media24’s threats against your former employee, David Lewis
We have been dismayed that Media24 has sought to muzzle one of your former employees, David Lewis, with threats of a defamation suit and of being interdicted by yourselves.
Mr. Lewis had been an employee of Media24, working as a page sub for certain of its Cape Town publications. He has complained of racial divisions in the newsroom in which he worked and of various forms of racism in the company. We do not wish to engage with the merits of this complaint.
In June this year, a group calling itself the Alternative Media Forum began distributing a leaflet entitled “Ja Baas!” The leaflet refers to Media24’s publications and claims that “Naspers and Media24 is a racist and prejudiced company, here only for a quick buck. It has paid lip service to diversity and equality in the workplace and continues to discriminate.” (The allegations in this leaflet, too, it is not our objective to engage with or to prove or disprove.)
Your company responded to this leaflet by sending Mr. Lewis an attorney’s letter (from Jan S. De Villers Attorneys, dated 26 June 2006) which claims that he is distributing the pamphlet and accusing him of defaming Media24. The attorney’s letter threatens Mr. Lewis with an urgent application for an interdict to prevent him from distributing the pamphlets and notes that Media24 “reserves the right to institute an action for damages” against Mr. Lewis for “the defamatory remarks” in the pamphlet. We find both the tone and substance of the attorney’s letter to be intimidating and an attempt to violate the free expression of a member of the public.
[. . . ]
As a media company (“Africa’s leading publishing group,” as you refer to yourselves), you should understand the critical importance of freedom of expression in the South African context and the need to vigorously guard it from any and all sectors of our society that might seek to subvert it. It is not a right that should be undermined – certainly not by the media whose very existence and work are dependant on the highest respect and adherence to this right.
It is extremely disconcerting, therefore, that Media24 has chosen to resort to threats (such as those contained in your attorney’s letter) in order to silence a journalist and, in so doing, is undermining a value and right that it should be protecting and defending.
[. . . ]
You also realise, of course, that Mr. Lewis is easily able to use the defences of truth, public interest and fair comment in this case – despite your attorney’s claim that the pamphlet “exceed[s] the parameters of fair comment”. We doubt that you would want to come up against these defences in court – the very defences that you as a media institution would rely on were you to be sued for defamation.
Furthermore, we are of the opinion that companies and other non-natural persons cannot be defamed under the law. As such, your accusation against Mr Lewis is clearly meant simply to intimidate him into self-censorship, another theme that many of your senior journalists have been writing a lot about recently.
As an institution that works for the protection of freedom of expression in South Africa and the rest of the African continent, we cannot allow such intimidation – whether it is of the media or of individual journalists. We have, therefore, pledged our support to Mr. Lewis in his attempts to defend himself against your charges and attempts at intimidation.
We encourage you to spare yourselves the embarrassment of being viewed as a media institution that wants to subvert freedom of expression. You should immediately give Mr. Lewis an assurance of the withdrawal of the attorney’s letter and an assurance that you do not plan to take any legal action against him. Your failure to do so will certainly result in a view developing of Media24 as being hypocritical on the question of free expression and of supporting it only in respect of itself but without consideration of that right for other people.
If you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to contact either of us.
Yours sincerely
Na’eem Jeenah, Head: Anti-Censorship Programme
Simon Delaney, Head: Law Clinic
Read the letter in its entirety on FXI’s Web site: http://www.fxi.org.za/
