Kenny Kunene ‘Xposed’ as media funder taking on ‘white-owned media’

Businessman Kenny Kunene has declared that he is soon to officially launch a new news website that he claims poses a threat to “white-owned media”.

The website, Weekly Xposé, has already been publishing content for a number of weeks.

It describes itself as a news website “with a mission to bring you stories that mainstream media would hesitate to bring to your screens over morning coffee”, adding that “every week we will bring you an Xposé, something you won’t find anywhere else”.

“There has been a real sense that this country lacks a media house that is independently black-owned and provides a news narrative that stands out from the one-size-fits-all you see all around us. Believe me, since this project was born, the amount of people who admit to craving a news organisation in SA that does not bow down to white monopoly capital is astounding,” Kunene told Weekly Xposé in an interview. 

Kunene says that despite the fact that the website hasn’t been officially launched yet, and “barely two weeks after entering the media landscape, Weekly Xposé has become the target of mainstream media who are doing everything to discredit the website”. He says the website has already become the target of a Mail & Guardian and investigative journalism group AmaBhungane investigation. He was reportedly asked if his site was in the business of spreading fake news, something Kunene vehemently denies.

“As far as I am concerned, white-owned media is feeling the heat of this site, how professional it has been set up, and they wanted to know who runs this website and see if it is not someone they could control so they can also control the narrative of this website.”

The apparently early public declaration of Kunene being the funder of the website appears to be a reaction to a journalist, Phillip de Wet, digging around on Monday to see who was the site’s registered domain owner. He reportedly discovered that it was Kunene, who has now gotten ahead of any report the M&G may publish about their discovery.

AmaBhungane called him the next day.

“When they stoop so low as to investigate the domain of a site that’s been running for a few weeks to find the site registered in Kunene’s name it only ended up pissing them off. The call from AmaBhungane is a clear indication that they would seek to suppress any efforts by a black South African they can’t control to play in the media space.

“This site is properly set up and staffed with seasoned journalists who have worked in white-owned media. The site has been running on a trial basis with reputable African News Agency, and various international feeds such as AP, dpa and Sputnik.

“The site has been running as a trial. The editorial team is in the process of being built up. But now that Mail & Guardian are giving us all this free publicity, we may as well push the planned launch a little earlier.”

He said that there was nothing unusual about the site having been set up by the same person who worked for the Gupta-owned New Age newspaper.

“I do not have any links to The New Age,” Kunene said. “I don’t ask skilled people where they have worked in the past.”

He also took aim at what he called a “sinister agenda” behind the investigation into the funding behind Weekly Xposé and Kunene’s relationship with the suspended editor of The Citizen, Steven Motale. He appeared to be echoing a phrase used in a well-known apology piece by Motale to President Jacob Zuma, in which Motale wrote that he had “been party to the sinister agenda against Zuma, and can only apologise for that”.

Kunene said: “AmaBhungane phoned me and ask me whether The Citizen editor Steve Motale is part of a Gupta faction. Then, after asking me this question, they asked me whether Steve is going to be employed by the website. You see what they are trying to do? I told Mike from AmaBhungane to call Steve and ask him himself! This is cheap gossip mongering that has no place in ethical journalism.”

Kunene declared that it had long been public knowledge that he was Motale’s close friend.

“Everyone knows I am friends with Steve. We are smiling together all over social media, and have been friends since we both taught at the same school in 1993!”