Ombudsman blitzes Surve’s newspaper group over its ‘dirty tricks exposé’
The press ombudsman has released a scathing rebuke of an article carried in Independent Newspapers’ publications titled “Exposé: The dirty tricks campaign against Independent”. The article, published last month, claimed that “white-owned” SA media had embarked on a crusade to slander Independent Media and its chairman, Iqbal Survé.Though many journalists “of a particular generation” were named in that article, one of them — Gill Moodie — filed a complaint with the ombudsman. She claimed the article labelled her a “propaganda journalist” and a member of a “white boys’ club”, and implied she was racist.The article, which was placed under the byline of Independent’s “journalism intern investigative unit”, said Moodie, along with Survé’s other critics, was a “virtual plant of the DA in our newsrooms”.In her complaint, Moodie had argued that the article was “a disgrace to our profession and breaches the code so flagrantly that I find it difficult to believe it was authored by professiona...
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