Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2005-12-04 Reporter: Colleen Lowe Morna

Media has Nothing to Gloat About

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent
Date

2005-12-04

Reporter

 Colleen Lowe Morna

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

It's sad for democracy that some in the media, which champions its right to criticise everyone, have such a thin skin when it comes to themselves. The simple point I made in another newspaper is that when a woman denies laying a rape charge, be wary, because she may have been put up to it - as proved to be the case in the Zuma saga.

Indeed, no sooner had The Sunday Independent named the victim than The Star, of the same Independent newspaper group, said it would not do so, presumably out of ethical considerations. The Sunday Independent has since retreated into referring to the victim as the "rape complainant". Why the about-turn?

Media that all but named the victim by giving so much information that her identity could be deduced should not gloat. But nor should you fail to question your role in the present irony, captured in Maureen Isaacson's article ("Let the punishment fit the crime") that it is the alleged victim, not the alleged perpetrator, who is in hiding.

"Out of Africa" should issue wholesome debate, not neurotic pot-shots by an ex-Playboy editor (also the author of the Zuma rape article) hiding behind the skirts of the buxom Karen Bliksem. (I wonder what she would have thought about this use of her name, had she been around!)

Speaking of ethics, your thinly disguised spook would do well to acknowledge that the inflection to my name is a joke made by me in this newspaper, not the oh-so-clever original that it's made out to be in his drivel.

Colleen Lowe Morna
Executive Director, Gender Links
Johannesburg

With acknowledgement to Colleen Lowe Morna and Sunday Independent.