The media themselves need to acknowledge that they sometimes get things wrong. This can be caused by inadequate or faulty investigation, or it can be influenced by the iconic appeal of a particular story. Always there is the pressure of meeting deadlines. Such considerations are excusable, whereas a deliberate twisting of the truth, for whatever purpose, is not.

The public has access in this country to the media ombudsman for the lodging of complaints. Ultimately, recourse can be had to the courts or alternatively to a number of NGOs or legal clinics that are willing to give free advice which, in its turn, can lead to out-of-court settlements where legitimate grievances exist.

Two current stories prompt these reflections. The "Happy Sindane" case has at last been settled by a Bronkhorstspruit magistrate identifying this vulnerable young man as Abbey Mzayiya who was put under intolerable pressure by the media to say that he had been abducted as a child when in fact he had not. In a compassionate judgement, magistrate Marthinus Kruger considered such a "lie" to be pardonable, placing the responsibility for it primarily on the press. A paint company went even further out of line than the press by using the young man's face in an advertisement without his permission. It has settled on a payment of R100 000 that will now be used to fund the education and training which Mzayiya has never received.

The other story is noseweek's allegation that a female student at the University of Zululand dropped her rape charge against Deputy President Jacob Zuma's son in return for being offered a lucrative job in one of Schabir Shaik's companies, he being Jacob Zuma's personal financial advisor and friend. Shaik has indicated that he plans to take noseweek to court.

The investigative magazine's editor, Martin Welz, has shown in response that it conducted its inquiries carefully and that when the allegations were put before Shaik three times for his comments, he failed three times to respond. The decision was made to publish.

A free media can make mistakes as can any other public institution. Yet a democracy without a free media is a contradiction in terms.

With acknowledgement to The Natal Witness.