EDITORIAL: Magda sets the example
In one week, Magda Wierzycka has played a critical role in enforcing accountability in SA
It’s been the sort of week for Sygnia’s unflinching CEO Magda Wierzycka that will hopefully embolden other SA business leaders to take a stand on issues of principle. It was, in part, thanks to Wierzycka’s relentless campaigning around the #GuptaLeaks e-mails that led to MultiChoice reportedly deciding to ditch ANN7 from its broadcasting platform. Those e-mails revealed how Naspers’s pay-TV platform was paying R50m a year to the ANN7 network. Until recently, the Guptas owned ANN7 but in August they sold it to former government spokesman Mzwanele Manyi for R450m — in a deal funded by the Guptas themselves. This week, City Press reported that MultiChoice will ditch ANN7 when its contract expires next June. The reason: ANN7 was promoting a "factional agenda", it was providing "biased" news, and was damaging MultiChoice’s brand. Wierzycka played a key role in the campaign to get MultiChoice to see sense. Then this week, she won another battle when a judge ordered Manyi to retract defama...
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