A week ago, News24 published some good data ahead of South Africa’s local government elections. We were super happy with what News24 had done and publicly praised them. We thought it great that another media house was producing high-quality political data, as this is what South Africa sorely needs to improve the quality of its political debate and policy making. We compared the News24 findings with our own data, produced in conjunction with the Social Research Foundation, to give readers a comparative picture of the changing political landscape.

Among other things, we wrote: “It was so good [therefore] to see News24 bring those numbers, and other media houses should follow suit,” and “Very well done and very well presented. It is that standard of information that South Africa needs to produce on its politics. And it is a big investment and service to the public to produce such information.”

What did we get in response?

A letter from News24 editor Adriaan Basson that we set out in full below.

“I’m writing to you about the article headlined ‘New Polls Show DA on Track to be Biggest in Gauteng but Jo’burg Mayoralty Out of Reach’, published by The Common Sense on 6 October.

“It is our view that The Common Sense’s article does not comply with the rules laid down in the Moneyweb judgement of 2016 with regards to attribution and proportionality.

“Although you credit News24 (in fact, the formal name of the poll is the News24/SABI poll, not a ‘SABI poll supported by News24’), there is no hyperlink to our full poll results. As you know, like The Common Sense, we operate a subscription service and original content like this is a key driver of subscriptions to our platform. Kindly insert this link https://specialprojects.news24.com/elections-poll-26/index.html in your article and refer your readers to the original polling data.

“We are of the view that you transgressed the rule of proportionality by recreating our graphs and presenting them as The Common Sense’s property. As was the case when News24 reported on the SRF/The Common Sense poll, we request you to copy the News24 graphics showing our logo and remove our graphics bearing The Common Sense logo and credit, when The Common Sense contributed nothing to this poll.

“Please let me know urgently if you are willing to comply with the requests above.

“Regards,
“Adriaan”

Small-minded, ungenerous, and spiteful. It is this kind of attitude at the top of legacy news media publications that explains why so much of their reporting is also spiteful, small-minded, and vindictive, not just in South Africa but across much of the world. People are sick of it because it does so much damage, divides societies, and drags them back from making progress.

What South Africans want is that people of influence stop doing this and start working with each other to make the country a better place. And it is to stop this sort of nonsense in the media, which is arguably the greatest source of division and pettiness in the country, that The Common Sense was created. Not to chase clicks or drive views but to bring South Africa’s moderate centre together and to the fore so that its influence will become dominant enough to fix the country. That is our objective. And there is a great opportunity to do that right now as the politics starts coming apart and spiralling out of control – get that centrist majority united, and they will fill the vacuum to shape the next generation of politics.

Our country could be so successful. And so many millions of people could so easily be lifted out of a life of poverty and terribleness. We must work to do that and only that.

Our greatest asset in doing so is that South Africa has a vast pragmatic centre made up of people who are black and white, Democratic Alliance and African National Congress supporters, rich and poor, that extends across every historical and political divide of this country – as our own polls, that we are so pleased are commonly quoted in the press, repeatedly show.

But we are not going to get South Africa right if that centrist majority cannot be united and that majority will not be united as long as South Africa’s media continues to pull us all down, and worse than that, too often drive the divisions that risk pulling us apart. How many hundreds of News24 headlines could readers think of that have harmed the country and moved it further away from the ideal we need to work towards if we are to all get through this dangerous political and economic period in good shape?

We continue to think that News24 did a good thing in its polling and that other media houses should follow suit. And we will continue to praise such work and with it anything and anyone else that helps to build the country and unite its people. But we are also going to make sure that readers have a choice between divisive legacy media houses and the fresh, positive, optimistic, and constructive journalism of The Common Sense – journalism that explicitly seeks to build a united South Africa that pursues policies that will lift the economy to improve the lives of millions of people.

To make that point we are going to do something. If you are tired of the small-mindedness, and the damage this does, then make a choice. Basson’s letter has caused The Common Sense to launch a (cheeky) new subscription category for people who are fed up with News24 – click on the News24 Exit Pass option when you join up and you get a discount relative to our usual monthly rate. Sign up here.