A South African editor tells this story: ”I asked my newsroom when a story should not identify a victim of abuse. One answer: ‘In cases of bestiality, the pet should not be named.”’
It’s a true tale and one that predates the rise, and rise, of tabloid journalism — which is the really appropriate context in which to discuss such species distinctions.
I doubt, however, that the staff on the Daily Sun debated these kinds of issues when recently relating on a converse attacker-victim tale — headlined ”Gorilla raped me”.
For tabloid writing to count as journalism, as distinct from pure fizz, it should have at least some of the basics of journalism. The problem, it seems, is that some tabloidism gives a bad name to this genre of journalism as a whole.
At least this is the angle taken by South African National Editors’ Forum chairperson Joe Thloloe. He told me that, in his view, tabloid journalism should be able to command respect. Referring to the United Kingdom, he contrasted the Daily Mirror (good) to The Sun (bad).
For Thloloe, today’s tabloidism simply echoes the racist formula of the Bantu World newspaper of the 1960s. It’s a formula that exhibits contempt for black South Africans, presenting them as primarily criminals and/or creatures driven by rampant base instincts.
A look at Naspers’s Daily Sun tabloid tends to confirm his view. The paper’s diet is not even mitigated by that staple tabloid commodity, celebrity news. Having a quotient of such ”success” stories might have made for a more upwardly mobile representation.
But what should concern Thloloe most, however, is a fact far worse than the caricatured content. It is this: this stuff scores … and the resulting sales figures are sensational. The Daily Sun now sells more copies than any other daily in South Africa — about 350 000 per edition. (Its sister Die Son claims close to a million readers).
It’s true the Daily Sun carries little in terms of elevating content. But that’s not its primary purpose. Instead, it successfully sells elementary entertainment to an all-too-receptive readership. Take the story in Monday’s edition. Headline: ”He loved her to death … You WILL be mine — until death us do part!”.
The main body continues: ”LOVE ONLY ME forever — or die! If I can’t have you no one can! Love or death was the choice she faced. And she died for the love of a man! Smashing bullets ended the lives of a young, beautiful woman who had everything to live for … and her jealous lover.”
Crass archetypal narratives like this are the stuff of cheap fiction and they’re a country away from credible journalism. Yet, an entertainment media vehicle does not have to be pure garbage.
Thabo Leshilo, the recently appointed editor of Sowetan newspaper, believes — like Thloloe — there’s tabloid journalism and tabloid journalism.
He regards the ”real” thing as a combination of sensational presentation and content — but that, at root, is still factual.
”Tabloid journalism should not make up stories,” he affirms.
His particular challenge is to do a kind of tabloidism that will reverse the Sowetan‘s circulation decline — the result of its erstwhile attempt to raise the tone of the paper. That strategy was devised by the company’s previous boss, Saki Macozoma of New Africa Investments Limited, and implemented by then editor John Dludlu.
The endeavour was designed to mirror the move of black, middle-class readers into the formerly white suburbs. Inevitably, it lost many working-class readers to the Daily Sun.
Leshilo says the new direction for paper (now owned by Johncom) is to get back to the grassroots and away from LSM (living standard measure) 9 and 10 readers — the more affluent readers.
”Who are you producing papers for? You cannot be for everyone,” he says.
The Sowetan editor also argues, in effect, that much of South African society has moved from sobriety to sizzle.
”The 1970s and 1980s have gone; this year is the one of tabloid journalism.”
For him, newspapers have to become interesting and popular, hence the turn to tabloid journalism. But, he observes, ”this does not preclude other forms of journalism”.
Leshilo was the talent that made a success of the Sowetan Sunday World four years ago, introducing South Africa then to a racy, celebrity-focused publication that still somehow kept space for serious content.
According to him, the Sunday World at the time operated within the press code of conduct of the press ombudsman’s office. It is a code that, Leshilo claims, is now being violated by the Daily Sun. The point, for him, is that tabloid journalism can — and should — have standards.
The specific kind of standards is an issue raised by Justice Malala, editor of ThisDay, the quality, upmarket daily that closed shop last month.
While Malala’s own publication notched up a mere 23 000 sales per edition, he is unrepentantly critical of South Africa’s tabloids.
”They only tackle Zola or Mandoza,” he says, in reference to exposés of kwaito stars. Only at the point when he sees the same treatment of mayors and ministers, ”that’s when the tabloids will become journalism”.
Yet in playing a watchdog role, it may be wrong to write off a paper like the Daily Sun in its entirety. The publication has just produced some impactful journalism on the scandal of the racially segregated storing of donated blood. And a recent report on conflicts at a Gauteng police station has led, it is claimed, to intervention by the provincial commissioner.
Account should also be taken of an item of feedback I received from my last fortnight’s column.
Ingo Caprero, editor of Die Son, e-mailed me as follows: ”We regularly run stories on Aids. Sensationally, of course. Often with a ‘wacky’ angle.”
And the result is: ”They do get read that way.”
He also adds: ”We have a weekly ‘campaign’ of sorts going, aimed at the empowerment of women to help combat Aids.”
So, ”tabloid journalism”, it seems, may be several things, and the term can encompass a range of roles in varying proportions. What’s common to all is that the genre should make for highly popular reading, not that it’s all rubbish.
A point to watch in coming months is whether the new Sowetan will do tabloidism more delicately than does The Sun and Die Son.
My hope is that if Leshilo publishes a ”man bites dog” story, it will indeed be factual — and not the only way in which township life is reported. Oh, and that in such a species story, they do give us the name of the dog.