The Conversation Africa falls prey to ANC/left hegemony and tyranny: Part 2

Part 2: Academia, The Conversation and media captured

I joined The Conversation forum in April 2017. Soon after, on August 7, the editor Caroline Southey emailed asking me to fill in my profile because they “noticed I was active on the site”. It’s not a requirement and I said so; many other non-contributing academics commentators’ profiles are blank. She replied, “You’re very active on our site (which we welcome warmly), so we thought a profile would be useful”.

I gathered it was because my comments were often article-length, interesting, informed, added value, well-written and sometimes better than the articles I commented on, which other commentators remarked on too.

I mainly read the Africa edition with regular forays to other editions. The Conversation was founded in Australia as a platform for the academic community in which to publish non-peer-reviewed material of general and academic interest. Its motto is “academic rigour, journalistic flair”. 

However, articles frequently fall short, and even far short, of that standard. Many in the Africa edition, but not exclusively so (since I mainly read the Africa edition), are below academic and good media op-ed standards. Writers’ arguments and analyses often are opinion passing as fact, superficial and add little to no new information. As a result, many falls short of the standard one expects of academics and so-called experts. Frequently readers get frustrated by this. I commented on it too. I wondered about the state of (local) universities if this was the quality of their research and writing.

In an early case last year a University of Witwatersrand academic, who is not a expert on the subject he wrote about (bulk water provision), took offense when I criticised his faulty and tendentious analysis of Cape Town’s water crisis. I asked if it was an example of Wits’ “decolonised science”. It was uncalled for, but he had irritated me. (I hold a Master’s degree in urban management and am resident of Cape Town so had some basis for disputing his good news assessment.)

In high dudgeon he replied I could write my own peer-reviewed article which he could criticised. He vowed never to respond to me again, but I continued commenting on his subsequent articles, which I mostly thought lacked depth. He was unnecessarily touchy especially for a person who must receive robust criticism of his work among his peers.

Again recently two academics (here and here) irritably told me I could write peer-reviewed articles (why the obsession with peer-review when they’re writing in the general media?) after I disagreed with their respective weak and specious analyses and sound bite conclusions. I had criticised one about her understanding of income inequality. She’s a PhD candidate in criminology and as she herself implied, is not an expert on inequality. But she had denigrated my analysis. She was not to know, although that didn’t excuse her dismissive comment, I’ve a good academic and practical knowledge of poverty and inequality having studied it for a Master’s degree. I told her so too.

However, to his credit, afterward the other academic sort of apologised, mitigating what he had said and thanked me for my remarks that “got him thinking”.

A US-based South African professor, who had not even written the article in question, insulted me when I disagreed with the premise and conclusion of an article about South Africa’s implementation of the sugar tax this year. There was no justification because I cited other research which the authors Karen Hofman Aviva Tugendhaft had neglected to do that was either sceptical of the tax or said information about its purported medical benefits weren’t yet available. (Later I wrote a substantial rebuttal of the tax posted on Politicsweb.)

He was unusually aggressive and called me a “hack”, “charlatan”, etc. It was definitely against The Conversation’s “community standards” but he was neither warned, as editors do from time to time, nor his comments removed.

A few other egregious examples from The Conversation Africa:

·     At Wits researcher disparaged all hipsters as colonial, or “colonisers”, on the basis of how they looked, dressed and accessorised and their fondness for antiques and a previous, “Victorian” or “colonial” era and houses.  She said they’re causing harm. Imagine the outcry if that was said about gay, religious and cultural and especially black communities. In the social tinder box that’s South Africa, it’s equivalent to calling them racists and bigots which, when it occurred when whites were accused, caused damage to reputations and lives. She displayed the usual lack of self-irony because her hair is in dreadlocks and would object if people judged her on looks. 

·      A University of Stellenboch lecturer accused M-NET rugby commentators Naas Botha and Nick Mallett of “white patronage”, or racial paternalism, that basically means “racism” despite there been no evidence and an inquiry investigating the incident still proceeding. When I and another commentator, a professor and The Conversation contributor, objected to his interpretation of the incident and said he should wait for the inquiry’s findings, he insisted they were culpable. In a strange reversal, arts and culture editor Charles Leonard posted a comment reminding me to keep things civil. I was civil but couldn’t say the same about the writer’s stridency and combativeness and lack of facts which Leonard apparently had no problem with. I commented as much. The inquiry dismissed there was racism during the during a studio incident.  There was no retraction from either the author or The Conversation as I and other commentators suggested.

·      There were a few articles about racism and the Vicki Momberg case (keyword search the site) that advocated tough legal action to “root out racism”, e.g. like a UCT law faculty lecturer’s recent one. But as I noted on the site more than once, there were no articles, comment and analyses about racism – real and deemed – where blacks like Velaphi Khumalo were the accused and alleged accused. The Conversation’s contributors were silent about this egregious case of hate speech (unlike Khumalo’s, Penny Sparrow’s, Momberg’s and Kessie Nair’s outbursts were merely racist) and other cases.

These examples, a few of many, illustrate the general colour blindness, blinkeredness, reverse racism, dishonesty and hypocrisy of the liberal-left and academic community, and by extension, The Conversation and South African media. This kind of nonsense is not only published on The Conversation, they endorse and encourage it and it’s republished by other media as authoritative, expert academic product.

These academics and others who write in The Conversation Africa, but perhaps other editions too, are supercilious and self-important, probably a general attitude among them, and as I experienced on the site with a few, abusive, disrespectful and patronising. They research and write about matters only other equally self-important academics read and that has little real meaning and relevance to society.  But they demand and expect society’s respect. They forget their salaries and work are paid for by taxpayer in the service of all South Africans including The Conversation’s readers.

They also apparently forget its purpose is to provide a platform for their work to be available to a wider and lay readership, arguably the majority of its readers. So, as I told a couple of them, if they have a problem with lay readers commenting on and criticising their work – I acknowledge many comments are uninformed and irrelevant, which may be irritating – perhaps it’s they who have the wrong idea and should seek another platform.

It’s true that most authors, articles and The Conversation’s editors have a liberal-left view of the world. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But this ideology on its own doesn’t explain the world as it is, and in most cases it’s politically agenda-driven, proselytising and often just wrong.

And this being South Africa, they take the prevailing liberal-left and ANC governing party’s view. In articles I’ve read on The Conversation and elsewhere, they mostly fail to identify and address the ANC’s and its policies’ glaring failures, not out of ignorance, but probably like most groups – business being an egregious example – out of fear of offending and because of prevalent, strangling political correctness.

As a result, many articles on particularly socio-economic matters are inadequate, unfulfilled and disappointing and leftist fodder that adds little to nothing to our knowledge and understanding. I criticised this fallacy and bias when I see it on other sites too as I do right wing fallacies.

It's a rare thing – perhaps unheard of – to ban commentators for not keeping to the subject as The Conversation’s editor alleged I did. Yes, remove comments and ban people, especially trolls, for serial uncivil comments if they must. But to ban readers for a very petty offense, which is my case wasn’t really serious, is censorship. In The Conversation (all editions) I’ve seen debate that doesn’t strictly keep on-topic, which mine did (unless I replied to an off-topic comment), or veers completely off it, but none of those offending comments are removed.

Therefore, my comments were deleted and I was banned because I accused The Conversation and education editor Mtshali of censorship and a subjective, personal dislike of my opinion about decolonisation. I suspect she personally and the publication generally identifies with the left’s and academia’s decolonisation narrative and like them (UCT declined to censure fallist and student Masixole Mlandu’s “one settler, one bullet” recent statement and tweets) objects or is sensitive, even privately, to criticism of it. In this case, their private views merged and conflicted with their professional obligation to maintain editorial independence.

(Caroline Southey was in “political exile” for 20 years until 1997. That says something about her and the publication’s political and editorial position.)

While the Press Council's Code of Conduct confirms the right of sites to “remove profiles”, i.e. ban commentators, the code's fundamental principle is “freedom of speech”. SA's media is the strident and hypocritical self-appointed guardians and arbiters of free speech and the “truth”, but when they choose, engage in the tyranny and abuse of power they accuse dictators of, the latest incident being the detention of South African a journalists in Tanzania.

I daresay my robust reply to Mtshali accusing her/The Conversation of bias and censorship was a shot across the bows and damaged the relationship. But the comment was removed immediately so no-one else saw it.  Therefore, it must be considered private correspondence between editor and writer. At the worst she should have removed that comment – one wonders if they’re so sensitive to criticism that they don’t want adverse comments publically known – but not ban me although their terms and conditions do permit banning in severe cases.

But as I said, banning should be reserved only for outrageous cases of prohibited speech and serial offenders. In this case Mtshali, if it was her decision as I suspect it was, was petty and vindictive, typical of how I’ve described the media.

The Conversation removed my comment once before (not counting a recent Internet glitch when I accidentally posted the same comment repeatedly). On the Australian edition I criticised a University of Sydney gynaecologist’s politically biased pro-abortion views. Among other things, she claimed it wasn’t a big deal for women who had had abortions. She made a political point rather than medical one.  I didn’t take sides for or against but said it’s still very controversial and emotive decades after many countries legalised it.  Apparently, it was deleted for that reason (mine was not the only civil comment removed, though).

Note I’ve been critical of Politicsweb, Business Day* and Groundup on their sites (and Daily Maverick when it still had comments), but those comments were not removed for that reason and I’ve not been banned (yet).  (I no longer read Groundup – see here.)

Other media organisations are in the same dubious company as The Conversation. I was a frequent letter writer to the Cape Argus and received praise from one of the editors for my style and “independence” (he’s no longer there). The Argus also printed two stories of local interest I initiated and Cape Times invited me to submit op-eds because they liked my writing.

But the Argus suddenly stopped publishing my letters, and later without explanation, the Cape Times dropped a second op-ed I’d been working on at the editor’s personal invitation, coincidentally, after I wrote a letter to the Argus that owner Iqbal Surve was using the Argus, Times and sister newspapers to promote himself and his companies, bridging the owner/editorial Chinese wall.

Former Cape Times editor Dougie Oaks wrote in his blog and Daily Maverick, “I’ve never come across a newspaper where a persona non grata list of letter writers forms part of its editorial policy”. Like the Gupta family’s ANN7, Independent Media has become the joke of South African publishing.

However, Primedia (EWN, 702/Capetalk), News24 and Daily Maverick also censor comments to a greater or lesser degree, the latter two no longer having comments allegedly because of trolls. The question remains why they don’t have moderators, or are they too cheap to employ them. 

Purportedly Daily Maverick accepts letters to the editor – one of mine was published two years ago, an exception, coincidentally, about UCT. But as a rule I’ve found they don’t publish letters from rank and file readers but only those with titles and positions of some sort. They promised they would return the comments section after the revamp in April but haven’t done so and are unlikely to.

Comments are often more interesting than the articles, add context and readers’ input and is free speech in action. It’s one of the reasons I read sites. But I no longer read or infrequently read news and opinion websites that for no good reason remove people’s comments, which for me include BizNews and Groundup.  The grand dame of publishing, The New York Times, posts comments, and often robust ones, but comparatively insignificant South African publications believe they’re above that sort of thing and the riff-raff. 

Banning commentators is like that persona non grata list Oaks refers to. It’s not protecting free speech to remove them, as former UCT vice-chancellor Max Price fatuously and dishonestly claimed when he dis-invited Flemming Rose from giving the annual lecture in 2016, but suppressing it. The left and left media have no problems with this but are quick to accuse opponents and right wing media like Fox News and Breitbart News Network of excesses.

This is the real face of local media: censoring, hypocritical and tyrannical.

This is not only my view. Recently Politicsweb editor James Myburgh wrote (disclosure: articles of mine were published in Politicsweb but I don’t necessarily agree with its editorial position):

A large part of the [South African] press has been captured, our leading newspaper is currently in a state of disgrace, and far too much thinking remains conditioned by decades of ANC hegemony.  In the South African context the big media groups are to some degree dependent on the ANC government, whether for advertising revenue, licenses or financing – and subject to its transformationist demands.

In the context [of ANC governance failures and country’s severe socio-economic problems] an independent, critically-minded and oppositional media – able to analyse where we went wrong, push back against the most dangerous trends, and illuminate an alternative path forward – is desperately needed.

I’ve written previously (here and here) about the state of the local media.  I’ll go further than Myburgh, though: it’s not a large part that’s been captured, but every mainstream media group and most of the independents (I’m not referring to specialist publications but news and opinion). 

Furthermore, news is being abandoned in favour of op-eds probably because it’s expensive to generate news and for the issues Myburgh indicated – falling advertising revenue and increasing costs.

The South African reader now has almost no choice regarding a critical, independent media.

Despite my concerns about The Conversation Africa being captured to some extent by the ANC’s and left’s narrative, it provided an alternative and interesting perspective on many subjects, not only social ones.

It would be presumptuous to say banning me indicates it has finally been captured, although I don’t know how many of its readers have been banned and for what reasons. (On the other hand, if I’m one of the few exceptions, it would be interesting to know what my crime really was.)  I’m not saying that.

But censoring readers on trivial, petty pretexts as local media are doing is its excuse to forcibly impose its politically correct and left wing agenda on the public and censor speech. If the media were without blemish I’d say there was justification for some of its actions. 

But large parts of it and individual members are in a self-made “state of disgrace”. They pursue sectarian agendas but claim they’re “independent”, the only ones worth listening to and who know what the truth is.  They expediently quote the Press Council’s code but violate it when it suits them. Where is the code then?  They’re in no position to self-righteously preach what is and isn’t acceptable conduct, but they do anyway. 

It’s for this reason I said the South African media is hypocritical and dishonest.  To expect them to undergo a self-imposed retreat to reflect on their mistakes and shortcoming is too much to expect.

I now read one local online publication daily and a couple of others two or three times a week, and even then under protest at their ANC/left hegemony.  I’ve determined local “news” coverage is not worth the description.  

For the rest, I read international media which still has credibility and offers quality journalism, the kind that’s rare in South Africa today.  For now, The Conversation Africa is one of those I’ve consigned to the “captured” bin.

Footnote: * Since writing Business Day appears no longer to have comments, or have blocked my IP address.

I sent a draft of this essay to Caroline Southey and the Press Council's public advocate Joe Latakgomo. There was no response.