Judges remarks for the 14th Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism
Delivered by Anton Harber, convener of judges
Award ceremony, 29 March 2019, at the Wits Club, Johannesburg
When we gathered for these awards a year ago, we had much to celebrate in the world of investigative reporting. It was the year of #GuptaLeaks, and we paid tribute to the journalists who had done much to expose and tackle corruption and state capture, and contributed to the downfall of a president.
Those media outlets, their editors, as well as foundations and philanthropists, who had backed investigative reporters, were seeing the benefits of their invaluable work, as was the country as a whole. We have watched with fascination in recent months as commissions of inquiry confirm what the reporters had been telling us, and we await how this should - we hope - play out in prosecutions, convictions and sentences. The credibility of investigative journalists, and the appreciation for their work, was at a peak.
Perhaps inevitably, today, we have had to come down from those heights. Newsroom cutbacks and retrenchments continue to limit the space and time given to investigative and accountability reporting. The social media giants are swallowing up the advertising that used to be the lifeblood of in-depth reporting.
At the same time, political pressure is increasing with journalists facing attacks, threats, spying and abuse – in our own country and around the world. We are particularly concerned that at home, journalists who question and probe – particularly women journalists – are often subjected to vile threats.
The country’s biggest newspaper – and a regular entrant and contender for our Award – the Sunday Times, had to apologise and withdraw three of the biggest stories they have done in the last decade. We have had to withdraw a runners-up prize given to the journalists of this newspaper in 2012. We did so with heavy hearts, but a determination to protect the reputation and standing of our award.
While there was a story to be done about the Hawks’ Cato Manor Unit, it is now widely acknowledged – by the newspaper, by the editor of the time, and confirmed by our own investigation – that the work was shoddy and amateurish, leading to a number of inaccuracies and reporting gaps. Not something worthy of our award.
This was a blow to journalism, and to the media as a whole, from which we are all still reeling.
Today we return to reassert the value and importance of the work, and to celebrate those pockets of excellence where great reporting still happens. I think you will see from the material we look at today, that we continue to enjoy some fine work – but there is little doubt that the need to encourage and build the pool of investigative reporting is more important than ever.
We have tightened our process for scrutinizing Award entries. We now have a group of students who scour them for problems and factual errors. I put a number of follow-up questions to entrants to clarify areas where we had queries. And we still have a two-panel process – a first panel that looks at all entries and produces a shortlist, and a second one that focusses on the top contenders. Next year, we will hold this event a month later, to allow more time for this process.
The remarks I make today are the considered and collective responses of the judges. With a rare opportunity to survey the best work of the year, this presents a chance to make what we hope are useful observations about this field.
We received fewer entries than previously, a total of 18 this time. We attribute this to the general state of the industry, the particular troubles of some of our most regular entrants, and the inevitable focus on the big national story. We are sadly seeing fewer of the unexpected, different, left-field entrants that we so enjoy highlighting and encouraging.
We were disappointed, again, by the number and quality of television and radio entries: we had only four television and no radio entries, not one. It is a great sadness that more isn’t going into bringing the power of the broadcasting media to bear on the many interesting and important stories in this country.
We received many entries that deal with corruption, including those that continued to air the ramifications of state capture; and we had – we were pleased to see – more than ever before on white collar corruption, notably the Steinhoff saga. There were a couple of stories on more local, city-level corruption and I think we can safely expect this to be the next important frontier of investigative reporting. We also received stories about bank heists, rhino poachers and gun runners, con-men and women, and exposés of those who are behind fake news websites. While this was a good range of stories, the judges observed that there remain many parts of South African life in need of investigation and many potentially rich stories which do not get the attention they deserve. We want to encourage a greater range of subject matters and urge journalists to produce and enter such material. We were pleased to see a few stories on the land issue, and hope we can see more of this kind of entry.
The judges asked me to comment on how entries are presented. We must urge entrants to submit the photographs and graphics that go with the story, so we can get a full impression of how the material was executed, and to write a full and detailed motivation. Some entries suffer because not enough thought goes into the information supplied to inform our decision. Because we have tightened up the due diligence we subject entries to before the judging, we found we had to ask a number of questions of entrants – requesting information that should have been supplied to us.
There were some entries that suffered as a result of poor editing – too long, too complicated, hard to read or watch, to follow and understand. Editors, please edit.
One excellent development was the publication of an evidence dossier – the amaBhungane journalists made their documentation and evidence available via a dossier on their site. This allows sceptics to scrutinize the evidence, and other journalists to make use of it to do their own stories. It is in keeping with the international trend to greater transparency in journalism practice, and it must be encouraged.
We also want to cite some interesting use of new forensic techniques, such as crowdsourcing on social media, and delving behind sites and bots to find out who was responsible for them.
One thing we grappled with in the judging was when journalists used the work of others – whether it was other journalists or NGO investigators – and we found it hard to discern which parts the entrants had contributed. We tend to favour hard investigative work over the good fortune of receiving and publishing a leak, so it is important to know what investigative work entrants have done – and we must ask you to make that clear in your motivations.
I want to pay special tribute to the whistleblowers, those who risk their lives and their livelihoods to speak out against wrongdoing, often with little reward. Without them, many of these stories would not be done, and we – and the whole country – owe them a gigantic thank you.
Let’s move on to the results. The first judging panel this year consisted of Thabo Leshilo, Prof Franz Kruger and myself.
We produced a shortlist of 8 contenders and this then went to our second panel, consisting of experienced journalist and editor Lizeka Mda, industry veteran Joe Thloloe, international journalist Sarah Carter, former judge of the Supreme Court, Tom Cloete, and myself.
A big thank you to the judges for their time and commitment.
So let’s get down to the 8 entries which made our shortlist, all of which can stand as examples of excellence in investigative reporting. In no particular order:
1. Renée Bonorchis, Janice Kew and Loni Prinsloo of Bloomberg for their Steinhof Investigation
It was pleasing to get an entry from this international agency for the first time. They offered a selection from scores of stories on the Steinhoff collapse, and it was an intriguing mix of financial and human interest material: a piece that gave early insight into how former CEO Marcus Jooste had enriched himself behind the back of his shareholders, a piece on the impact on the town of Stellenbosch, and one on an AIDS Charity that was going to close down as a result of the company’s collapse. A great deal of work was involved, spread over the whole year, highly-skilled and well-written.
2. Craig McKune of amaBhungane and Warren Thompson of Financial Mail for Steinhoff’s Secret History
This second entry on Steinhoff was the result of many months of enterprising investigation, in many countries, and the use of some unusual techniques across a range of documentary sources. McKune and Thompson drew on the Panama Papers to gather background company material, and then used social media crowdsourcing to find more material. They showed how the Steinhoff family had worked with Jooste to benefit themselves improperly. It was meticulous work, well presented.
3. Pauli van Wyk of Daily Maverick’s Scorpio Unit for Tom Moyane: The Decimation of SARS
This entry consisted of seven of the vast array of pieces Pauli did over the year to establish herself as Tom Moyane’s nemesis. Seven formidable pieces, each one longer than a SARS Commissioner’s Pinocchio nose, detailing the devastating effect of Moyane’s reign. It was authoritative, compelling, comprehensive work, full of details and numbers, but still digestible. It had a powerful impact at an important time, providing much of the information for Moyane’s suspension and firing.
4. Jean le Roux of News24 for Fake News Exposed
For the second year running, Jean le Roux did innovative and unusual work, using his technical skills to ferret out the people behind various fake news sites. He used website registration records, social media and the adverts on those sites to track down the responsible individuals. I am sure we can all agree that the proliferation of fake news is a danger we need to pay attention to, and Jean has done ground-breaking work. And it was presented with useful graphics.
5. Sasha Schwendenweing and Kathy-Lynn Austin of Carte Blanche for Follow the Guns (Carte Blanche)
This is an important contribution to the Rhino poaching story, showing us how tackling criminal syndicates can come down to tracking their guns. These two took us from crime scenes through import/expert licences to international guns manufacturers with pain-staking, multi-country work. It was a fresh approach to an ongoing story, and they did courageous work under difficult conditions.
6. Pauli van Wyk of Daily Maverick’s Scorpio Unit for the VBS saga
A second Pauli van Wyk entry revealed the Economic Freedom Front as one of the beneficiaries of the largest ever bank heist in this country, the tragic VBS saga. Pauli was the first to tell us how it happened and to nail down some of those who were proclaiming innocence. Her persistence and strength in the face of pressure is to be commended. This was a story with major political implications executed thoroughly and convincingly.
7. Kyle Cowan of News24 for Bosasagate
Before we had heard of Angelo Agrizzi and Bosasa, when we knew the Watsons for the manipulation of rugby balls rather than tenders, Kyle exposed the criminal dealings of this company. It drew attention when it played out on national television, because Kyle had laid the ground. Kyle confronted a number of big names, such as ANC general secretary Gwede Mantashe, prominent MP Vincent Smith, who resigned as chair of three committees, and finally President Cyril Ramaphosa. It was thorough and impactful investigative work.
8. Susan Comrie of amaBhugane for her Regiments Capital series
When public interest moved on from #GuptaLeaks, amaBhungane continued to ferret out the stories, including this important one which showed how this company’s phenomenal rise to success came by channelling money to the Gupta’s and their allies, including senior ANC figures. A new source added to AmaB’s many years of info-gathering, to expose the modus operandi and dramatis personae of state capture. It had significant impact: it led to an Anton Pillar order for a raid on the company, stark admissions of their wrongdoing and resignations.
There you have it. Eight shortlisted, of which one was in television and the bulk first appeared online.
Knocking this down to three for our short-short list was the hard part. As always, we had to ask ourselves what we most value: Is it stories that have the most impact, or different ones that open up different parts of our society? Is it the racy story, or the one that shows dogged digging? Is it important to break the story first, or do it best?
Before I get to the short-short list, the judges have asked me to make a special mention of work that stood out for its quality and deserves recognition, but didn’t make the top cut because of the specifics of our criteria. The special mention goes to:
Zanele Mji of AmaBhungane for her two pieces on land: ‘Those graves were our title deeds’ and ‘Cradle of Conflict’
Please collect your certificate after the ceremony.
Our final three contenders for this year’s award, in no particular order:
1. Susan Comrie of amaBhungane for Regiments
2. Pauli van Wyk of Daily Maverick’s Scorpio unit for the tom Moyane Dossier
3. Kyle Cowan for Bossasagate
It is interesting to see the strong presence of women among the top finalists. And the continued presence of non-mainstream operations, like amaB and Scorpio.
Before I announce the winner, I want to say that we have reallocated the R300 000 prize money this year. We have an unusual result and we therefore decided on a fairer distribution of that money among winners and runners-up for this year.
I am going to go straight to the winner. This year, the country’s biggest journalism prize is shared. The first prize goes to, in no particular order:
Susan Comrie of amaBhungane for her Regiments story.
Kyle Cowan of News4 for Bossasagate
You can deduce that the runner-up is:
Pauli van Wyk of Daily Maverick’s Scorpio unit for the Tom Moyane Dossier
Thanks
ENDS
Previous awards:
Taco Kuiper: The best investigative journalism of 2017 - Anton Harber
The best investigative journalism of 2015 - Anton Harber
The best investigative journalism of 2014 - Anton Harber
The best investigative journalism of 2012 - Anton Harber
Taco Kuiper Awards: SA's best investigative journalism in 2011
