The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), says the latest Sunday Times saga should be a lesson to all journalists and editors in the country.
The newspaper on Sunday acknowledged publishing false reports on allegations into police killings in Cato Manor in Durban, the South African Revenue Services rogue unit and the illegal deportation of Zimbabweans.
The stories were written by a team of senior journalists and published in the newspaper in 2011. The newspaper has apologised and agreed to return all prize money and awards won for the stories. Sanef deputy chairperson Katy Katapodis says this must never happen again.
“What we’ve learned as an industry is that every single journalist and editor in this country needs to use this as an opportunity to intersect and we need to ensure that we lock all our systems and ensure that we’ve got the correct processes in place so that never again will a member of the South African media be caught out in the same manner that the Sunday times was caught out in.”
