Publication	Sunday Independent
Date	2006-11-19
Web Link	www.sundayindependent.co.za

I have read with some disquiet the account by your correspondent Karen Bliksem, (November 12), of the various incidents and circumstances which gave rise to the attributing of the phrase "a generally corrupt relationship" (between Shaik and Zuma) to Judge Hilary Squires, when in fact he never used those words (although they seem to me to be a perfectly fair description of the findings of the judge in the case. So why is he complaining? But never mind that now.

What concerns me is that it is clear, reading between the lines, that there is an unhealthily close relationship (no, I did not say corrupt - I leave that to the sub-editors) between Karen Bliksem and Jeremy Gordin.

Of course I appreciate that in the hurly-burly of news journalism, the heady atmosphere of covering events of international importance together for the same newspaper, a certain intimacy may arise between journalists in daily contact. Particularly between journos of the opposite sex (and also the same sex, but let us not go into that fetid swamp right now).

But what appears to me to be going on between Bliksem and Gordin goes a little further than professional collegiality, I strongly suspect. How can a writer maintain his or her professional integrity when strong yearnings may be pulling him or her in a certain direction? Does the editor know about this? And are the interests of the public properly served in this way? *1

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*1       How can there be responsibility and accountability in journalism when there is allowed to be non-ownership of the words printed?

The Karen Bliksem column was conceived as a humourous take on current affairs.

It's now a more of a medium for taking pot shots at persons with opposing viewpoints and a medium for putting one's own viewpoints, or those of one's friends, as well as snippets of gossip, into the public ether.