Why the Knysna-Plett Herald is a Bad Newspaper
I am trying to look to the future and do as much good as i can. That’s keeping me so busy that i’m unable to maintain the previous pace and attention of this blog. Nevertheless, i need to clear some cobwebs first. Those include several nasty individuals/groups and 3 are involved in disinformation roles even though they belong to various types of Knysna’s media. Today, i address the first, the Knysna-Plett Herald:
There are two probable faces to this story; the economic survival of the Knysna-Plett Herald versus their commitment to journalistic integrity for the betterment of the town they co-exist with.
The importance of the media is undeniable. Without Knysna-Plett Herald and it’s handful of journalists, there is much that we citizens would be unaware of. I also acknowledge that the newspaper is a business with a goal of running for profit.
Modern media is a tough place to exist in, especially for print media which is threatened by free website content, social media and more popular television.
In Knysna, the KPH faces even more challenges as this small town boasts too many media all fighting for the same advertizing market which has shrunk with the economic return to reality. The KPH’s low sale price of R3 and opposition to placing classifieds with them (from Action Ads to Gumtree) further hampers their ability to offer comprehensive news with a respectful quotient of investigative journalism.
This brings us to the other side of the story where Knysna-Plett Herald’s coverage is both intentionally and unavoidably imbalanced.
It’s easy to understand ‘tabloid’ style reporting which relates news after it’s happened rather than digs for it. Someone gets shot – that’s news. A toddler gets run over – that’s news. Sensationalism is practically impossible to avoid when the human condition craves for something to shock its mind out of the immunity and insensitivity that’s being broadened into their neural pathways. That’s the “unavoidable” part.
I gave you a long intro so that my naysayers and doomsayers don’t negate the blog by stating that i’m being unfair by not looking at the bigger picture. Then again, the naysayers tend to avoid almost everything i write in lieu of personal attacks or blinded, emotional defence of my targets.
After all that i’ve said about the unfortunate predicament the newspaper may find itself in, i still question their agenda and morality. THE KNYSNA-PLETT HERALD’S IMBALANCED REPORTING AND EXCLUSIONARY NEWS SUGGESTS PROPAGANDA AND THAT ADVERTIZING REVENUES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN TRUTH AND INTEGRITY.
I am news. That’s simple fact, not arrogance. Whether you’re a supporter, critic or enemy, my nickname, “Wicked Mike” has travelled much of town. It’s possible that i put more content on the web last year than anyone else in Knysna – i have increased Knysna’s internet footprint. I’ve websites servicing Knysna for free. I’m the only one to call the DA on their lies. I intentionally composed controversial letters of complaint to Helen Zille. I denounced the motives of both the ANC and the DA because neither had put Knysna first. The Knysna Chamber of Business approached me to be quiet. I broke the story on Plett’s double municipal manager fiasco and more. I brought a story to the KPH about a woman being robbed and sexually abused by a Knysna cop. I brought them my tale of attempted murder and consequent police misconduct. I was the sole public voice against Shaun van Eck, Knysna Tourism’s ex-CEO for 20 months – and i was right far more than i could’ve known.
In a city, this would have been news. How could the Knysna-Plett Herald, a newspaper for the small town that Knysna is, not have mentioned me the past 2 years when far smaller news items are regularly mentioned? I approached Knysna-Plett Herald many times. Why did they ignore everything from acts of charity to activism?
I believe that it was because of the Shaun van Eck issue. The Knysna-Plett Herald chose to side with the then CEO of Knysna Tourism. Was editor Heidi Vogel looking to safeguard advertizing revenues from that quarter? Or is she, like reporter Fran Kirsten, possibly a friend of Shaun van Eck. After all, Fran Kirsten’s reporting has shown damn bias on the issue (and she was allowed to). No matter what is said in her articles, you leave with the feeling that Shaun van Eck has been wronged. No matter the gravity of the charges against him, the millions of (KNYSNA’S) money that was misspent or ‘misspent’, or the weight of the people deciding against him, Shaun van Eck’s the poor man who had to cancel his family’s annual holiday.
Before my few loud enemies twist this blog away from all the points and into a diversionary attack on my ego, note that we learn best through our experience. Opinion should be the “personal’ seeking facts of understanding. And what i’ve experienced raises a helluva lot of questions in my mind simply because it doesn’t make any sense unless there’s bias.
I’ve held my tongue for a long time with regards this newspaper (and other local media) in the hope that we’d one day share understanding. Today, when i saw one of my intended ‘protagonists’, anonymous blogger, Conrad Zeelie, post lies about me and my association with the Tourism Board (again, ignoring all the facts and the real issues), as a comment on their article online, i decided no more. After all, this same commentator, anonymously, recently posted numerous lies about me on 2 threads at GardenRoute.com’s forum. I have to treat it seriously as last time there was an anonymous commentator on a KPH Shaun van Eck article, Fran Kirsten quoted it (even though it was the only comment), to substantiate her next Shaun van Eck scribble.
To summarise with one, reiterated point: I approached Knysna-Plett Herald with the Shaun van Eck story in 2011. I approached them first. If they had been real journalists, they would have investigated. And investigation would have had them fulfill their media role as the fourth estate (which is to be our safeguard against those that abuse power). They chose propaganda. We are poorer for it. Opinions are easy but losing money isn’t. They failed me. They failed you too.
PS: I realize that my comment section will be far less active yet i’m insisting that only real people comment. After all, even if we use different approaches to one another, we are seeking the truth. Thanks for your support.
Having spent several years with television news outlets in the hot years between 1985 to 1989, I understand the business well. In those days the news folk hung around together to the exclusion of most everyone else, so I got to know many of the radio and print boys as well.
I discovered that the higher up the food chain you climbed, the more you were involved in policy. By the time you were financially reliant on your healthy paycheck, you realised the agenda you had been forced to follow was beginning to grate.
Then that old chestnut would always rear up. “Do I walk away from this bullshit because they won’t let me report the real news? or do I stay and collect my cheque and get to carry on being a reporter, fulfilling my life-long dream”
Unfortunately for the entire globe, most “journalists” follow the money/dream paradigm and ultimately sell themselves short, the public short and their dreams short and, in so doing lie to us all, every single day.
It is not shooting the messenger at all, the messenger shot herself to begin with. If we are to get real news, we should be exposing the reporters’ lack of candour and shame the rag that directs this kind of travesty.
To my mind the journo trade has become one big fraudulent exercise and the true ideals of journalism are lost forever in the hidden veils of propaganda.
HA! The moment after I posted the above comment I opened up an email from a friend, here it is: Oh the coincidence machine is hard at work.
by Zen Gardner
“I’m sick of hearing how we can influence mainstream news and media. Stop the damned grovelling! When will people wake the hell up that personal conscious awareness has nothing to do with what has been accepted in the approved mainstream slurry of popular thought?
Fuck, it’s idiotic!
Is everyone under a goddamned spell? Does nothing become manifest until the media mantra endorses it? Think about it! What really becomes real to most people before they get the mainstream word on it? Be honest. Is it a drug? A crime story? A flu outbreak?
People depend on the mainstream story, made up statistics, spin, illusions and omissions like it’s their life! Until they get that signal they’re not sure what to think. It’s absolute mass insanity!
The Masses are Living in a Hypnotic State
People are locked in to thought patterns. It’s been sculpted by social engineers and reinforced by false education, drugs and adulterated food and water for decades. If you don’t believe what I’m saying go somewhere else.
But it’s goddamn true.
Very nasty controllers are manipulating humanity and have done so for a long time. If you can’t see it yet, please keep looking. I don’t mean to blow you away with grand pronunciations, but if you’re looking around this site and others’ writings you’re apparently ready.
The way of mass control concerns techniques started millennia ago. It’s quite simple. If you’re a group of “advantaged” entities you would have an interest in farming those around you for your benefit. Oh, so benign appearing, but really with one selfish goal in mind.
Your benefit.
And everything would feed into that. The others are simply “fodder” which you’ve benignly let live and allowed to have fed. For your benefit of course, until some of them start to realize what’s happening to them.
Now look at history. Isn’t that exactly what’s happened, even if you look at the watered down version? The same controllers come out on top over and over and extol their wonderfulness to the world. “Can you believe it, the wars kept making the world more manageable for potential central control? How convenient!”
Anyway…
This is where we are at. A world jerked around by manipulated public opinion rather than conviction. And why no conviction? There aren’t any facts to process. There’s nothing of value to process except the vaporous crap they give us.
“What happened to the other arrested men at Sandy Hook? What happened and why with WTC building 7? Why no surveillance footage from the newly installed system at Sandy Hook or the myriad of cameras on the Pentagon on 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing scenes? Confiscated? Why?” Such bullshit for the ages!
Are you starting to get it? A great gulf is fixed between reality, and the projected false reality.
Which will you fall for? Or allow others to fall for?
Have a conscience. Do something.
Snap out of the hypnosis and live a true life. It’s all you really have.
And scream about it!”
Love always, Zen
Brilliant!!! Great read.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: “Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.”
On this blog, the loudest critics attack with disregard for the truth. They’re not debating. They’re intent on maintaining the status quo in this town…and that status quo benefits the minority. People allow the banks, media, the DA, the ANC and fear to rule them as if there’s nothing they can do about it. Fear promotes ignorance. Fear dis-empowers. They use democracy as a meaningless word instead of an action and a right. We’re the majority. We can change the current reality. As a majority, you no longer have to be scared of unemployment, crime…every evil that our “democratic leaders” have perpetuated because, if they hadn’t, they’d have led us out of it. Be a participant in the half a billion budget running through our town. If just 100 local businesses stood together (for example), against the crimes being committed against us, the face of our town would change for the better.
Hear hear! A salary isn’t an excuse. If it were, it’s the same as saying, “Let’s give up. I believe that the bad people should win. After all, i’m going to help them win with my silence. That silence includes me never complaining again about things i have no intention of changing.”
Mike while I understand your point of view, I don’t think pointing fingers at the Hereld journalists does any justice, especially targetting Fran Kirsten in particular. Being an old friend of Fran’s (since she moved to Knysna in 1994), I can vouch upon the fact that this “crooked journalist” smear campaign is not only inaccurate, but also a blatant attempt to name a scape goat for a much deeper routed problem.
Fran has been heavily involved with charitable organisations within the Knysna community for many years, raising 100’s of thousands of Rands for abused woman and children hosting the now legendary Ladies nights during the Oyster festival. I might add that she did this for little to no pay, with no personal interests invested what so ever.
We also need to take into account that as a journalist she has both a sub-editor and an editor to report to, who play a massive role in terms of what stories she is asked/allowed to report on. The poilitcs this work place dynamic bring on is easy to miss when considering who to flame as a reader.
I understand your frustrations, but unfrotunately I feel that you are unfairly shooting the messenger here. In fact, I would go as far as saying that you choose to target her because she is the journalist whose name appears the most within each edition of the paper, and you have very little understanding of the actually organisational structure of the Hereld.
While I actually really enjoy your blog (and what you’re trying to acheive for the greater good of Knysna), I ask you to please be a little more responsible with your writing, or at least try gather more hard facts before dipping your toes into the e-coli filled slander lagoon. After all, us old locals have seen many new locals such as yourself sheepishly fall off their soap boxes over the years.
It is incredibly easy to comment as an anonymous person. I was specific in saying that commentators had to reveal themselves to me. You chose not to which removes validity. You could be Fran but i will allow you this once:
Personally, as bizarre as it may sound, i immediately liked Fran a lot. She is one of several people in Knysna i’d like to have gotten to know better but that does not excuse her actions and non-actions. It does not excuse the KPH for being biased. It does not excuse her for choosing to be part of that bias.
The goal here is truth. Fran/you is welcome to share behind-the-scenes info – REAL info…things that relevant to the blog and help Knysna towards an honest future. Do that (using your real name, even if off the record) and i’d gladly embrace the better person.
Hi again Mike,
I appreciate you allowing my previous comment through moderation.
I choose to remain anonymous as I wish to voice my opinion as a Knysna local, but don’t wish to actively engage in the small town polictics which comes with revealing my identity. I hope you can respect and understand that. I promise you I am not Fran Kirsten, because I can assure you if she wanted to get involved she would confront you face to face and not hide behind anonymous blog comments 🙂
I agree, in a perfect world Fran could’ve taken on her employers and the established newspaper which is the KPH. Realistically however, we all know how that would turn out for her. You’re asking a small town journalist to commit media suicide, basically ruining all her chances of ever writing for a newspaper again for fear that she might take the whole organisation down with another expose.
Like I said in my previous post, you cannot soley blame Fran for the policies and (perhaps bias) agendas of the KPH. The world is rife with bias media, and I promise you it’s not the journalist’s who are the source of the problem.
Ok. I’ll leave it at that between us…you can have the last word on Fran.
Please note that the path of confrontation is never undertaken lightly. It is difficult because there are always consequences (especially for me). But i believe that they have to be followed, the world rocked, so that there is a check and balance on the system which has being frighteningly in favour of a few and very rarely in favour of the public. If more people chose to speak up, our lives/our town would improve. And if enough stood together, we’d be the majority – that is a Knysna i’d love to see!
Group Editors is been controled by the DA. There are sooooooo many issues which Group Editors which i have brought to the attention of Group Editors in George and Knysna but they have refused to publish same because most the issues implicate the DA in maladministration.
Politics is an utter mess on the Garden Route. I point fingers at all parties but it’s noticeable how the KPH has dodged certain issues. I’d certainly be interested to know how much the Knysna Municipality spent on adverts last year. You should take it further. There are higher levels to approach such as the Press Ombudsman. They can also be pressurized with continuous scrutiny, submission and documentation of such. Personally, i hope for resolution of my issues (they get that opportunity first – but it’s notable that i’ve yet to receive even a ‘friendly’ call acknowledging my complaint).
Press Code:
3.1 The press shall not allow commercial, political, personal or other non-professional considerations to influence or slant reporting. Conflicts of interest must be avoided, as well as arrangements or practices that could lead audiences to doubt the press’s independence and professionalism.
All newspapers have an agenda, besides a financial one. The financial agenda of everyone, from bloggers to MSM, to Indies on the net, is not going to go away, even they have to have dough to survive. Some allow it to sway their content here and there and some don’t, but the real core issue here is their socio-political agenda.
Research who the owner of a “newspaper” is and find out what they are about, and there, you’ll have the agenda of that outlet. Every time. Without fail.
Forget the editors, the “journalists” or the staff, look to the owner and their affiliations.
I hear you. One of the most respected newspapers in the world is The Washing Post yet it’s owned by the Moonies cult. In a local context, i have had complaints about the KPH’s political bias in Plettenberg Bay i.e. favouritism towards the DA even when though the DA has been criminally irresponsible there and cost the public unnecessary millions. BUT, because i’m in Knysna, my home, the town i’m mad about, i have repeatedly given KPH chances. Even this morning, i addressed Nicole Moolman, their operation’s manager at Group Editors with “KPH can look to the future or get bogged down. I’ve yet to go to higher bodies simply because i love this town and would much rather have a positive relationship but KPH has to take their first step towards that. Hit the ball back.” The fact is that every opportunity, they chose not to be journalists. They need to strike a balance between revenue and fairness.
Thanks for your thoughts on this topic. Small town politics are dirtier than we all realised, especially if there is a million rand budget to play around with. I actually found the whole topic extremely boring and never read any of the KPH articles- only your opinions have been worth reading so far. Fran K actually writes quite well, and I have appreciated her stories on the health of the Knysna lagoon and the mass pipefish deaths in 2011. Other articles which court big money- are more obviously shallow and motivated by greed. sometimes I even look to see if it isnt actually an advert disguised as an article. For example-ConradPezula attracting big spenders to Knysna was a boring article as it did not touch on the illegal goings on at Noetzie.
Small town politics are as dirty as i realized but the relief is that this town is amazing and hosts amazing people too i.e. worth fighting for.
Fran was certainly the Queen of the Poo articles. She went for that topic with a vengeance.
Regards Pezula, i wanted to give the new partners the benefit of goodwill. The move was good for our town. That doesn’t mean that they mustn’t deal with Noetzie conservancy issues. The opposite. They must stretch PR to all parties. It’s a chance for new beginnings which all should take. Hopefully Noetzie has submitted a new report to the Hilton powers that be.
yes, other more polite and patient people are doing their best, but still nothing has changed- the commercialization of Noetzie continues- including CoradPezula shoo-ing members of the public off “their” section of the beach, serving alcohol, overflowing sewers, blah blah blah. It makes NO difference. They have money, and attract money so everyone lies down and says” break the rules- thats fine you can do whatever you like”. In the meantime the sense of place and the environment is being slowly buggered up for good.