London's burning - remember 2010?

In London (the city that is to host the 2012 Olympics) groups of young people rampaged for the third straight night.

It is difficult to resist the temptation to schadenfreude when one recalls the way the Brit media behaved over the football World Cup in South Africa in 2010, where every petty crime that occurred in South Africa was gleefully and prominently reported with the reminder that South Africa was to hold the World Cup in 2010.

So when I read stories like this, I recall those days.

Market Inline - British riots spread through more cities on the third night of violence:

In London, groups of young people rampaged for a third straight night, setting buildings, vehicles and garbage dumps alight, looting stores and pelting police officers with bottles and fireworks. The spreading disorder was an unwelcome view of London’s volatility for leaders organizing the 2012 Summer Olympics in less than a year.

In 2010, the Daily Mail was particularly bad in this respect. See, for example Notes from underground: Legends from a small country: 'Kill a Tourist Day'. But other papers joined in, sometimes even making up completely bogus stories and headlines for the purpose.

So as London (the city that is to host the 2012 Olympic Games) burns, many South Africans might be tempted to think "serves them right."

We'll probably resist the temptation, but watch the South African tabloids to see if you can catch a glimmer of Schadenfreude. You never know.

Sunday papers

For a long time now the only newspapers we buy regularly are the Sunday papers, which we get on the way home from church. We've usually bought the Sunday Independent, which bills itself on its web site as "South Africa's quality Sunday newspaper. Coverage of news, opinion, business, marketing and books with a comprehensive sports section and strong focus on ..."

But as we drive down Tsamaya Avenue in Mamelodi every lamppost has a newspaper placard, plugging the latest story. Most of them are of the "sex, soccer and celebs" type, but occasionally there is a story that seems interesting in an offbeat kind of way. The Sun, for example, is big on zombies, and one of its best headlines was "Zombie stole my soap". So sometimes if we see an interesting headline we buy one of the other papers, in addition to the Sunday Independent.

One that we seemed to be buying more and more was City Press.

Finally, yesterday, we just bought the City Press, which from now on will be our default Sunday paper in place of the Sunday Independent. Why? Because City Press seems to have surpassed the Sunday Independent as South Africa's quality paper. The only paper that was better was The Weekendser, which folded several months ago.

Why the switch? What has changed?

I'm sure that part of the reason is that City Press has improved, and has higher standards of journalism. Its articles are well-written and interesting.

But also, the Sunday Independent has got worse. It's joined the "sex, soccer and celebs" brigade, though without the soccer (yes, City Press has better sports pages too). So the Sunday Independent is all sex and celebs, though with one difference. In the other papers in the genre the celebs are usually singers or film stars or models, or football players or coaches, or parasites; people like Brenda Fassie and Paris Hilton. In the Sunday Independent, however, they are politicians. The Sunday Independent is full of stories about politicians and especially who is jumping into bed with whom, literally or metaphorically. And also who is divorcing whom, matrimonially or politically.

City Press however, seems to be more focused on issues than on personalities, and that makes more interesting reading.

A selection of recent headlines from Sunday Independent:

• Zuma's lapses
• Gama plans legal bid to keep his job
• Knight-West shootout row continues
• Ousted youth league leader Masoga heading for the courts

It's all about who's up-and-coming and who's on their way out, and who's fighting tooth-and-nail (and legal injunction) to keep their position. What one does not hear is what their policies are, what their vision for the future is, and what will be lost, if anything, if they lose their jobs.

So I concluded that Sunday Independent was playing with my head. It was creating and reinforcing the perception that our political leaders have no policies and no vision at all, and all they are doing is jockeying for position to get in the front row at the feeding trough, and the best seats on the gravy train.

Now that perception may well have some truth in it, quite a lot of truth, even. But that can't be all there is. Someone must be running the country while they're fighting. After all, the World Cup stadiums got built in time, and were praised, sometimes lavishly, by foreign journalists. Apart from some glitches at Durban, people got to the matches, and there was less soccer hooliganism than there was in Germany four years ago, and better attendance at the matches. In our big cities (unlike many of those in Europe) you can drink water straight from the tap without fearing that you will catch some nasty disease.

Yes, corruption and greed and incompetence have plagued local government in some places and the water reticulation and sewerage has often not been properly maintained and developed. Two years ago we went to do research in the archives in Pietermaritzburg and the building was all over builders' rubble. I've been told that the renovations are still not done -- two contractors have been fired and it has been put out to tender a third time, and the Public Works Department apparently wants the building cleared while the job is done. But at least someone is renovating the archives. I've seen university student residences in Kenya and Albania that have been in far more urgent need of renovation, yet nothing seems to be done.

So I've got tired of reading all about the jockeying for position; I'd rather read more about the positions themselves.

The media have gone on about the spat between Mbazima Shilowa and Terror Lekota of COPE, and the wooing between Patricia de Lille of the Independent Democrats and Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance. Very few seem to mention that it was largely due to Shilowa's initiative, when he was Premier of Gauteng, that we got the Gautrain, now nearing completion. A few years ago it was dubbed by the media the "Shilowa Express", because Shilowa had the vision of an integrated transport system for Gauteng. Of course we have yet to see whether the Gautrain will do any better than the ill-fated Metroblitz of 25 years ago.

So for the time being I'll be reading City Press rather than Sunday Independent,. because I'd rather read about policies than personalities; about visions rather than vendettas; about inspiration rather than in-fighting.

PS: Yes, I know Breda Fassie is dead, but she continued to make headlines from the grave for years afterwards, and if it wasn't her it was her boyfriend Chico (what do you call a widowed boyfriend?)

Niehaus: journos twist the knife -- and the facts

When journos get the knife in, they really twist it (and the facts), and stab again and again.

Consider this report about the former ANC spokesman

News - South Africa: Niehaus has no degree: report:

Former ANC spokesperson Carl Niehaus does not have a doctor's degree in theology as claimed, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

According to Beeld newspaper, Niehaus did not get a doctor's degree in theology from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, as he had claimed. This was during his stint as South Africa's ambassador in Den Haag.

Note that the body of the story says that he didn't have a doctors degree from Utrecht, but the headline suggests that that he has no degree at all, which seems to be a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Now perhaps that is because there's a general election coming up, and the media believe that all's fair in love, war and politics. If your political opponent is down, kick, kick and kick again. If he's done one thing wrong, make it look as though he's done everything wrong, and nothing right.

Max du Preez, a well-known journalist, goes even further, and is more specific: "He lied about having a degree and a doctorate... he apparently only has a matric certificate behind his name" (Pretoria News, 19 Feb 2009).

Now when Carl Niehaus was released from prison he visited the Missiology Department at Unisa (on 26 March 1991) and all the department staff gathered in David Bosch's office to meet him. He was a student in the department, and was one of the very few to have been allowed to study for a Masters degree in prison. Willem Saayman, his supervisor, described the hoops he had to jump through to deal with all the red tape in order to visit him in prison to discuss his studies. I don't know if Carl Niehaus was ever awarded the Masters degree, summa cum laude or not, but he would certainly not have been allowed to register for such a degree at all if he had "no degree" as the media are now claiming.

On the Emerging Africa blog there is a discussion on whether the important questions today are about authority, identity, morality or something else. And I would say that at this point in our history, with a general election coming up, and all sorts of stories circulating about corruption among politicians, that morality probably tops the list. I'm as disturbed as some journalists that people in the ANC seem not only to support people who have been involved in corruption, but also to approve of their behaviour (the demonstrations in support of Tony Yengeni are a case in point). Going to jail for fighting for truth and justice is one thing, going to jail for fraud and corruption is another.

But morality is also an issue for journalists. Carl Niehaus may have lied about some of his past achievements, but some journalists have also apparently lied about Carl Niehaus.

Greed, which used to be regarded as one of the seven deadly sins, is now regarded as a virtue by many of our political leaders, and that makes morality a hot issue.

And for those of us who are neither politicians nor the journalists who write about them, St Paul's advice applies, "let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" (I Cor 10:12). In ten days Great Lent begins, and we pray the prayer of St Ephraim:

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages.