Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

ADV POTGIETER: Well, thank you for sharing those experiences with us.  In fact, on that, on the hand grenade case you eventually got charged, not so, for, in terms of the old Police Act, for reporting untruths concerning the police, not so?

MIKE TISSONG: Yes, I was subsequently charged.  Rich Mkondo, with whom I had written the story, I wrote the story from my, the information I had received over the phone in the newsroom and when Rich Mkondo came in he also had similar information and we arranged, between the two of us, that he would go to the township to give the eyewitness account of the blood, the targets, etcetera, and I would remain in the office to put the story together.  This I did and then when the police came down on us and were going to charge us, my friend, Rich Mkondo, ran away to the United States.

MR LEWIN: Maybe a wise thing.

MIKE TISSONG: I was left to hold the can and appear in court in terms of an Act which said I had lied about the activities of the police.  I made several court appearances and at some stage the prosecutor and the investigating officer, whoever it was, told the lawyer who was representing me that they would not, that they are not dropping the case, but they are suspending further prosecution of the case and up to now I have had no word whether they will proceed to accuse me of Joe Mamasela's deeds.

ADV POTGIETER: Yes, I very much doubt that.  It might be cold comfort, but, I mean, you have already indicated to that or referred to that, that that was one of the things that came before the Commission and that, you know, the so-called operation Zero-Zero Hour has enjoyed the attention of our investigators and we have been able to uncover very interesting lines of authority that led to that particular incident, but at least that should be vindicating you in some way.

MIKE TISSONG: Yes.

ADV POTGIETER: Although, of course, as I say, look, it is, it might be cold comfort at this stage.  The other thing that you referred to was that it was said to you some time after you had actually been at The Star, that they had followed this policy of not promoting black journalists into any, sort of, senior positions for fear of upsetting the Government, attracting attention to their papers, but there was no law against promoting black people in newspapers.  That was something that was self-imposed by the paper, not so?

MIKE TISSONG: Yes, that was definitely something self-imposed by the papers themselves, because it looked like they did not want to upset the then Government of the day by putting black people, capable black people in positions where they would be giving orders to their white colleagues, but in a certain way, I feel that they could have tested the waters by making appointments such as these and defending them, but they did not.  Instead, I feel that companies like The Argus Company, at the time, which was very conservative, probably used the Government as an excuse, at the time, to further their own beliefs in the apartheid regime, at the time.  That it might have discomforted the people themselves without their being a law in place to keep black journalists, capable black journalists, lower down the ranks and to promote white journalists above them.

ADV POTGIETER: And these other peculiarity of removing your by line, your name from an article and then using it verbatim, without any changes.  What did you think, why was that done?

MIKE TISSONG: I felt very terrible about it at the time, but it happened so many times, not only to me, but to other journalists as well.  That they would write stories and the only creative input would be that their names get removed from these stories.  It was very strange that, they probably did not want to upset their market which was white readers, at the time, by seeing that so many stories in the newspaper had the names of black people attached to them.  This goes back to this problem of apartheid being so integral to the operation at the newspaper.  That there were no laws forcing them to do these kind of things, but some of the people employed by The Argus Company, at the time, were so conservative that they just felt that this is the natural thing to do.

ADV POTGIETER: You have, in the meantime, I think, the, become the Assistant Editor of The Sowetan, if I am not mistaken?

MIKE TISSONG: I am now the Night Editor at the ... (intervention).

ADV POTGIETER: Night Editor at The Sowetan.

MIKE TISSONG: At The Sowetan, yes.

ADV POTGIETER: Oh.  What is the experience nowadays of black journalists against this background that you have sketched, the discrimination and so forth and so on?

MIKE TISSONG: It, the effect, the long term effect of some of us having started our careers with newspapers like The Star, at the time, was that we were held back.  We, our careers were stifled and the only way that some of us could further ourselves was to get out of that kind of environment, because after seven and a half years of working at The Star, I was employed as a reporter, after seven and a half years I left as a reporter.  It was the same experience with other journalists as well.  That they would never progress beyond the low level that they came in at.  This is why we sought employment elsewhere.

ADV POTGIETER: It was ... (intervention).

MIKE TISSONG: The long term effect is that there are a lot of us who should have been in senior positions in publications a long time ago, never achieved those kind of positions.

ADV POTGIETER: It was asked of the two previous witnesses, at The Sowetan has there also been a change in ownership from black, from white to black?  Was it not also, previously, owned by The Argus group?

MIKE TISSONG: The Sowetan was previously owned 100% by The Argus group and through some arrangement with a group of businessmen under Dr Motlane, there was a 51% takeover of The Sowetan operation by New Africa Publications.  Since them they have increased their stake in the publication.

ADV POTGIETER: I just want to ... (intervention).

MIKE TISSONG: So, it is effectively, black owned and black run.  Not some, not like some of my colleagues at TML and ... (intervention).

ADV POTGIETER: Right.

MIKE TISSONG: ... where it is still.  So, you can speak freely.

ADV POTGIETER: Now, just, in general, if you can comment on that, because, you know, it is a general question, not specifically in regard to The Sowetan, but what is your experience, what do you pick up from your colleagues, in general?  This, sort of, transformation, let us call it, at the top, in terms of filtering down to the bottom, ... (intervention).

MIKE TISSONG: To the news room.

ADV POTGIETER: ... to the news rooms and the papers and so forth and so on?  How is that progressing?  Is it being ... (intervention).

MIKE TISSONG: I think I should also ... (intervention).

ADV POTGIETER: ... felt or not?

MIKE TISSONG: I think I should also make mention here that I am also the General Secretary of the Black Editors Forum and one of the things that we are fighting about is not only a diversification of the media in terms of who owns the media houses, but also the way the operations are run.  That to reflect, truly, what is going on in the country there should be greater involvement by black people in the running of those publications.  In our view, it is not enough for Johnnic to be in effective control of TML, but the TML operation is still being run in the way it was five, ten, 15 years ago.  To us, that is not enough.  That there should be some sort of programmes in place by the media houses to correct the situation of the past and, as far as we are concerned, we do not see strong evidence of this taking place.  That we could run into the year 2000 and the pre-election structures of these media houses still remain the same and that will be a problem to us.