Can you trust William Saunderson-Meyer?

William Saunderson-Meyer is a syndicated columnist for the Weekend Argus, The Citizen, Politicsweb and others. He writes the Jaundiced Eye column.

His position is soft liberal, centre-right, typical of progressive white supporters of the DA. This group, which includes white intellectuals, grandly consider themselves defenders of democracy, during and after apartheid.

Like his ilk, his columns are anti-ANC.  Being them, there is much to agree with him. Written in high-dudgeon outrage of many columnists, his analyses are superficial.  In that he’s similar to most of South African opinion and analyses, which is common place and poor.

I didn’t read him regularly until I started reading Politicsweb in 2016 (disclosure: I no longer read it). I never gave him much thought except he was inoffensive and run-of-the-mill.

While I agreed with his sentiment about the ANC, left and government, the majority of his writing as a political columnist, I noticed often his facts and assessments were wrong.  He was guilty of little to no research, even basic stuff.

Cyril Ramaphosa came to office on a wave of optimism after the disastrous Zuma. His supporters, aka CR17 after his presidential campaign contributors, were convinced he was the country’s saviour despite him facilitating and doing nothing to mitigate Zuma’s corruption and incompetence. His messianic support is called “Ramaphoria”.

In 2018, shortly after Ramaphosa’s appointment, Saunderson-Meyer wrote he was doing okay and "much of the criticism of the President is unrealistic" (sic). After a few months in office there was no evidence for this Panglossian opinion except to Ramaphosa’s supporters. Ramaphosa aka Ramaposter aka Ramaposeur said the right things but did nothing beyond that to lift South Africa's status quo.

Saunderson-Meyer denied he was a Ramaphoria when commentators including me put it to him. But he couldn’t provide evidence for his positive assertion. However, within months he made a 180 degree turn when Ramaphosa, to his even most fanatical supporters, Business Day’s Peter Bruce chief among them, turned out to be a huge disappointment sane people expected.

So, Saunderson-Meyer is contradictory and fickle. Is that enough to condemn him, though, because he’s not the only white liberal to have been fooled by Ramaphoria? Perhaps not but he denied he was a supporter when in fact he was and he based his good assessment on the man’s self-stated and self-serving good intentions and not on the evidence. But by Ramaphorias’ standard, an intention, whether or not it’s made good, is sufficient for sainthood. 

Saunderson-Meyer's judgement and objectivity as a “political analyst” is therefore questionable. It’s more egregious because he’s not an ANC supporter.

In other articles I found mistakes of fact and questionable analysis. As I said, sometimes he failed to do basic research. However, this is a problem with South Africa’s media and reporters in general.

In August 2019 in his column Saunderson-Meyer wrote about three Tygerberg Hospital doctors who had been disciplined for allegedly stealing broken chairs and repairing them at own cost for the staff room. He was outraged. Unlike his column, which are opinion pieces, in that one and follow-up columns he investigated including requesting the Western Cape Health Department for records and transcripts of the disciplinary hearings.

He was unaware and unfazed those records and human resource matters were confidential. When the department failed to respond, he implied that in itself was evidence of wrongdoing.

Tygerberg’s and WCHD’s prosecution of the doctors was excessive and an abuse of authority. But I couldn’t understand of all the stories about the country’s bad healthcare problems and tragedies like Life Esidimeni, what was special about this one to get him and the media riled up.

I concluded that to whites and middle class anything that attacks or questions their race, interests and standards is unacceptable. Doctors, other professionals and businesses are in the largely white group of untouchables. And whites and right-wing whites appeal to authority particularly if the authorities are white.

It's a really a racial circling of the wagons, historic entitlement we constantly see and which Melanie Verwoed writes about in News24. Involving Black Lives Matter, she says "sometimes whites should just shut up".

But Saunderson-Meyer, like his class and media, don’t concern themselves about and report on doctor and medical negligence which is a big problem in South Africa especially in public hospitals, and the country’s numerous social ills affecting blacks, the poor and unemployed.

It was only a month ago that I learned something that indicates why he was personally invested in the doctors’ situation. (They were later exonerated at an arbitration hearing. WCHD backtracked slightly on the original charges following a media outcry.)

Saunderson-Meyer is managing editor of Medical Brief which broke the story and taken up by national media. According to its website, it was founded in 2014 as a subscription service to 150 people. Since then it has grown to over 37 000 subscribers, of which 35 000 are practitioners and the rest related officials.

In his column about the Tygerberg doctors he didn’t disclose he was Medical Brief’s editor, but provided a link to their story. It’s now obvious he would advocate for subscribers that includes doctors.

But it’s highly unusual for a journalist to take a personal interest in a story, and one he covered elsewhere, and use his column to further an agenda and launch a personal attack. The unease and questions I had when I first read the article – lack of journalistic objectivity, ad hominem attacking the object of the story – hospital, officials and health department, not that they didn’t deserve severe criticism – elevating a mundane matter to national importance and lack of context came clear when I discovered the other hat he wears as Medical Brief editor.

The dictum “Do not use the media to fight personal battles” is one members themselves forget. It’s understandable when the public do it but inexcusable and tawdry when the media does it as well, and with disappointing regularity and for petty reasons.

So, can you trust William Saunderson-Meyer? No, not as an impartial observer and commentator. He's another media person with an agenda, which is the de facto state of the country's media.