Untrue, Inaccurate and unfair reporting

Business Day Business Live on the 26 February 2018 published an article (penned by journalist Theto Mahlakoana) entitled “Medical body denies accusation of fraud”. The report makes several unsubstantiated claims in respect of court documents.

The Association (SAMA) is very concerned by the inaccuracies contained in the report and what essentially amounts to a serious breach of journalistic integrity, more so by a respected daily newspaper. In our view, it is a transgression of the Code of Ethics and Conduct for South African Print and Online Media, which expects of the media to take care to report news truthfully, accurate and fairly. SAMA reserves all its rights in this matter and will be addressing it through the appropriate channels, including but not limited to the Press Ombudsman.

The report has seemingly departed from the facts through -

• Material omissions: it fails to inform the reader that the high court application referred to has been struck off the urgent roll with costs in favour of SAMA on 20 February 2018 (i.e. 6 days before the publication of his article). It also fails to mention that it alludes to an answering and replying affidavit that was never before the court (it was filed outside the time limits allowed for urgent matters and the judge did not allow its inclusion) and thus refers to documents that were never in the public domain. The report also fails to mention that the judge struck the application off the roll because she believed that neither locus standi by the applicant (Dr M Phalane) nor urgency existed;

• Not approaching SAMA for a response prior to the publication of his article: Denying SAMA a right of reply while levelling serious allegations against the Association resulted in a unilateral and unbalanced report resulting in reputational damage suffered by SAMA, as evidence by the Facebook comments on the article.

• The report states its own interpretation of the information as facts, neglecting an essential component of critical reporting by distorting the facts and not providing a fair and accurate report of the court procedures. The report also does not disclose that it only had access to limited information and did not approach SAMA for any comment.

• Falsely creating the impression that SAMA is being accused of fraud – the word “fraud” does not feature in the Applicant’s Founding Affidavit and the journalist did not go to the trouble to indicate that these allegations of unproven facts was her own interpretation – with reference to the decision of the Press Ombudsman (cf. Jurie Roux v Rapport on 6 July 2017).

When serious allegations such as those contained in the article are made a journalist must be able to show journalistic integrity by not unfairly prejudicing one of the parties through his one-sided version of affairs. SAMA will insist, among others, that Business Live provide it with the opportunity to properly reply to this article, and will share its reply with its members. This seems a fair request.

The South African Medical Association remains a professional voluntary association for medical practitioners and has been registered as a non-profit company (previously known as a Section 21 company) since 1927. The Trade Union entitled “The South African Medical Association” has not been deregistered. SAMA continues to act in the best interests of all its members and rejects any allegations of fraud against any portion or group of its members in the strongest possible terms.