The ‘news agency’ that offered to do PR work for the Guptas

A news company headquartered in Johannesburg has been identified in the #GuptaLeaks as apparently offering to improve the Gupta family’s image – for a fee.

When contacted for comment, it denied there was ever such a plan. However, the emailed offer that the Centre for African Journalists (CAJ) News Africa made to the Guptas through their executive editor  Tintswalo Baloyi is right there in the #GuptaLeaks.

On March 16, 2016, under the subject “Media volunteer to defend Gupta family negativity”, Baloyi offered to share the story of the Guptas’ “good works” with the world.

However, Baloyi, in his response to a request for comment on whether he had sent the email and why, said: “Nonsense! If you don’t have a news diary to submit to your editors, look for something else from courts, or press releases from labour, political parties, poverty, crime and technology companies.”

Shortly afterwards, The Citizen was contacted by the CAJ’s group CEO and editor-in-chief, Savious-Parker Kwinika.

“I’m told by this boy Tintswalo Baloyi that you communicated with him something that I’m not so sure about? But what he is telling me is disturbing because I don’t know of such things as the editor-in-chief of CAJ News,”said Kwinika.

The veracity of Baloyi’s e-mail has been authenticated by not-for-profit company Forensics for Justice, which seeks to hold government accountable for its actions, or lack thereof.

It found the e-mail was also sent to Duduzane Zuma and Atul Gupta, among others, and was “authentic in all respects”.

Baloyi’s e-mail to Oakbay on 16 March under the subject “Media volunteer to defend Gupta family negativity”, offered to set up a meeting between Kwinika and Oakbay to “discuss possibility of doing news articles countering the local negative media blitz aimed at tarnishing the Gupta family and their business [sic]”.

Oakbay had not responded to a request for comment at the time of going to press.

In his e-mail to them, Baloyi wrote: “CAJ News has noted that the Gupta family is being unfairly reported to portray them negatively as election campaigns hot-up.

“Our media campaigns will help portray the good works and positives that your companies and Gupta family have achieved in South Africa and beyond,” said Baloyi, noting the campaign would not fight anyone but report “the truth about the hard work that the Gupta family did to achieve everything they own or have”.

Baloyi ended with:  “The campaigns will, of course, attract a fee.”

Adjunct Caxton Professor of Journalism at Wits University Anton Harber said this kind of offer would be grossly unethical for a regular news agency. However, CAJ News doesn’t only report on the news, it specialises in press releases, something traditionally associated with public relations.

Said Harber: “The CAJ is a disseminator of government and private sector information rather than an agency. Its website is confusing in that it claims to be an agency and promises to raise the bar for journalism standards in Africa, but in fact it is just a purveyor of media releases.

“It is sad to see such a confusion of news and public relations functions, because this is good for neither journalism nor public relations. It should be made clear that the CAJ is not a news agency in the normal sense of the word, and should not call itself this.”

Baloyi’s e-mail was sent from Oakbay to then CEO Nazeem Howa, who forwarded it to the now disgraced public relations company that was running the Guptas’ and Oakbay’s much-maligned and ill-fated media campaign, Bell Pottinger.

That is where it appears to have died a natural death, with no further response from anyone in the Gupta email trove.

Also, as Kwinika noted, there was no evidence on his website to show his media house had indeed performed a function for the Guptas or their businesses.

Dr Sarah Britten Pillay, a leading communication strategist, doesn’t believe any news media organisation is completely unbiased or without an agenda.

“But siding with the Guptas in this way is a clear indication of a lack of journalistic ethics,” said Britten Pillay.

“Given the overwhelming evidence of corrupt practices involving the Gupta family and certain members of the South African government as well as SOEs, ‘credible news media organisation’ and ‘positive reporting on the Guptas’ are by and large mutually exclusive concepts,” she said.

“That any editor would offer to do this suggests a flexible relationship with ethics. This approach is far more in line with what I would expect from a PR agency. You can be a PR agency, or you can cover the news without fear or favour, but you can’t do both at the same time,” she noted.

“To me, this was a clear case of a news agency operating more as a PR agency. It’s fine if a media organisation wants to do that, but then they cannot expect to be taken seriously as a credible source of information.”

Britten Pillay noted the Bell Pottinger campaign – for which it was expelled from the British controlling body for PR agencies this week – had been “smart” in the sense that it tapped into a pre-existing narrative ripe for exploitation.

“They succeeded through amplification of specific pro-Gupta voices and pro-Gupta viewpoints (via the bot army), though they never really achieved the credibility required for this campaign to truly succeed. The more money you need to throw at a narrative to get it to gain traction, the less authentic it is,” said Britten Pillay.

“Anyone wanting to make a quick buck would have spotted the opportunity, as appears to be the case here [with the CAJ offer].”

On its website, the CAJ states it is “the continent’s premier newswire and press release distributor endorsed by both private and public sectors in all 54 African member states”.

“Most importantly, we consistently deliver accurate, objective and reliable news continent that assists to develop the continent,” the site goes on to state.

Among its clients it lists the Mail & Guardian, Media24, News24 and wire service African News Agency, whose copy is used extensively by media houses (including this one) and is accepted as unbiased.