New Age pulls out of Press Ombudsman process rather than apologise

4 March 2015

The DA has learnt that The New Age newspaper has decided to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the Press Ombudsman. This means that it will no longer be possible to hold the The New Age accountable for the fairness and accuracy of its reporting.

The timing of The New Age's withdrawal is interesting. It follows a DA complaint to the Ombudsman on 3 February regarding a front-page article in The New Age that defended government's disproportionate advertising expenditure on The New Age.

After missing a series of deadlines to respond to the DA's complaint, the CEO of The New Age, Nazeem Howa, wrote to the Ombudsman on 25 February to "confirm the withdrawal of The New Age from the Press Ombudsman processes."

The article in question was an egregious breach of the Press Code, and the DA's complaint against the newspaper would almost certainly have been upheld. It therefore appears that, to avoid the embarrassment of  apologising and retracting the story, The New Age decided to withdraw from the Ombudsman process altogether.

According to Mr Howa, The New Age is "considering the appointment of its own ombudsman to deal with complaints against the paper." The problem with this approach is obvious. An ombudsman on the payroll of a newspaper cannot be viewed as independent when adjudicating complaints against that newspaper.

The fact of the matter is that The New Age is an unashamedly pro-government newspaper, owned by close friends of the President. The New Age continues to receive the lion's share of government advertising, despite its small readership, in return for coverage favourable to the government.

With its withdrawal from the Ombudsman process, we can expect The New Age's pro-Zuma bias to escalate dramatically. Nobody will be surprised if this is rewarded with even more publicly funded government expenditure on advertising.

We cannot sit back and allow public money to be spent on political propaganda. The DA will continue to do what it can to expose The New Age's agenda, and its symbiotic relationship with the President and those close to him.

Statement issued by Gavin Davis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, March 4 2015

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