Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

JON QWELANE: Thank you Mr Chairman.  The reason I did not go into all that was because I was really mindful, personally, of the 30 minutes I was allotted.  There is a heck of a lot more to that than just misty eye, because it is residual,  It comes from the late 70's and right through the 80's.  The way that the media operated and, particularly, the curbs on the press during the 80's right through to the end of the 80's with the State of Emergency, meant that newspapers had to obey certain strictures of the emergency, certain curbs.  Now, it was a little difficult having to go and explain to people who knew you had witnessed the same, shall we say, State atrocities, like the shootings and all that.	You come and you have got a figure of, say, arbitrarily, ten people shot dead and the official organs of State come back and say, no, there were two people shot and, in fact, the dead are the police, are only policemen and everybody else was not into it.  Now, you are necessarily forced to write this sanitised version of the truth, which was nothing else but lies.  It was not, of course, as extreme as all that, but, usually, numbers would differ.  You, I know, I was at one instance, for example, where a photographer, Peter Makobane, was shot.  I was right with him when this happened.  Yet, the version we got from the official sources that you, necessarily by Law, had to count, was totally different to the real situation.	Now, activists in the townships monitored our work as closely as the system itself, the security police and the Government itself monitored our work.  So, in a sense, we were really caught between a rock and a hard place and, of course, this increased and as we went towards the elections, there was also, at another level, an ideological battle between the pro-catharist outfits, ANC, UDF, Sasco, that sort of thing and, on the other, the pro-Africanist outfits, the PAC, Baso and Azania and that kind of thing and, of course, at some level there was also the black consciousness outfits and, of course, right in the fringes was the IFP which you never really knew what it wanted, you know. 	Whether it wanted, I mean, the others you could tell, they were fighting for our support as journalists, but with that other lot you really could not make up your mind what the heck was going on with them, but having said so, yes, that was a serious difficulty and it also made our task a lot more difficult.  I suppose that, as we go along, there will be lessons to be drawn from that state of affairs.  Yes, the coverage was not, perhaps, as it should have been, but the antagonisms came about, largely, because of the way news was treated when it finally saw the light of day in print.  Thank you.

THAMI MAZWAI: Well, I think, our relationship as black journalists with the, a few of the organisations was such that they would come and fetch you from your home and say this is what was happened.  You would be taken to the scene and you would see five corpses.  Then you would go back to your office to go and write the story.  Then the police would come and say, no, there were only two people who were killed and then when you would go to your, to the powers that be on your newspaper and say five people were killed, but the police say it is two.  Then you would be forced to change that story, particularly, as, when it goes through the lawyers, because then, all of a sudden now, what you saw what your eyes could not be trusted. 	You now had to say, answer questions as can you give the names of those five people, can you really say that they were all killed at the scene.  In other words, you were even made, as an individual, to doubt the story that you had written or what you had seen.  At the end of the day then you start writing the story of two people who were killed, what the police said.  Now, when you go back home in the evening those same youngsters are waiting for you.  Then they say to you now what happened, tell us, because we took you to the scene, what do you say.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, it remains for me to thank you for having come in spite of all the heavy strictures of time and other responsibilities that I am so consciously aware of.  We have gone through three, this is the third day now, of perspectives, none of which is quite exactly like the other which, for that very reason, is an enriching experience.  I have no doubt in my mind that when we sit down to write the report, we will have been enriched by the testimonies which all of those who came before us have given.  I need, therefore, to say to you that I was concerned when it appeared that you are not appearing, because it is clear we would have lost a richness which cannot be substituted by any other people, because it could not have been given in the way in which you have given it.  Thank you.  	I will, without further ado, call on the Times Media Limited.  At last.  Gentlemen, welcome.  Since I began to be sitting on these sessions, from Monday, I have become comfortable in just saying gentlemen, because I think these hearings have been so gender insensitive, but then the starting of my making.  Gentlemen from Times Media Limited, welcome, and good afternoon.  I do not know in which way you are going to be making your presentations, but before you do, I will ask Commissioner Mary Burton to swear you in and thereafter, immediately thereafter I will ask Hugh to facilitate your presentation.  Mary.
TIMES MEDIA LIMITED

MARY BURTON: Thank you Chairperson.  Are you all willing to swear the oath?

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: (Duly sworn in, states).

NEIL JACOBSON: (Duly sworn in, states).

LAWRENCE CLARK: (Duly sworn in, states).

MARY BURTON: Thank you very much.  I wonder whether, perhaps, before Hugh starts, you would read your names into the record.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: I am Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairman of Times Media Limited.

NEIL JACOBSON: I am Neil Jacobson, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Times Media Limited.

LAWRENCE CLARK: Lawrence Clark, Chief Operating Officer of Times Media.

CHAIRPERSON: Hugh?

MR LEWIN: Thank you, Mr Chair.  Gentlemen, thank you very much.  You have seen this morning the way in which the session works.  You have seen also the way in which time does not work and you have heard a considerably amount already.  If you have not seen coverage over the last two days about comments that have been made, you have heard this morning, already, some of the criticisms that have been levelled at, excuse me, what has now become called the mainstream press.  I would just like to thank you, firstly, and record that you have made a substantial submission which we have on record and I think what we would appreciate now, if you could take us, very briefly, through that and, possibly, already begin to meet some of the or provide some of the answers to the questions that have been raised and I am sure we will raise a few more.  Thank you very much.