Thematic media highlight: Fikile Mbalula and the sex scandal

Articles analysed: “Always remember: the words we use shape our world”, City Press, 06 November 2011; “‘Isoka’ Mbalula – envy of his peers”, City Press, 06 November 2011; “Mbalula claims plots are afoot”, Sowetanlive, 09 November 2011; “Mbalula in sex row”, Sunday Independent, 30 October 2011; “Mbalula model speaks: ‘I’m still standing'”, City Press,06 November 2011; “Mbalula in sex scandal”, City Press, 30 October 2011.

Name of newspapers: City Press; Sowetanlive.com; Sunday Independent

Names of journalists: Cedric Mboyisa and Adriaan Basson; Staff Reporter; Deon De Lange and Sapa; Ferial Haffajee, Babalwa Shota & Gabisile Ndebele; Qhakaza Mthembu and S’Busiso Mseleku.

Date: 30 October-09 November 2011

Country: South Africa

Themes: Culture and tradition, gender violence

Skills: Language, portrayal, sources

Genre: News, opinion & analysis

GEM classification: Gender aware (Always remember: the words we use shape our world, and ‘Isoka’ Mbalula – envy of his peers); subtle stereotype (‘I’m still standing’); gender blind (Mbalula in sex scandal); blatant stereotype (Mbalula claims plots are afoot)

Description
When a person occupies a public office his/her private life literally ceases. Whatever little or big, good or bad, scandalous or reputable thing s/he does is always of public interest. This is the case with Fikile Mabalula, South Africa’s Sports and Recreation Minister whose sex encounter with Joyce Malamu, a North West based businessperson and model attracted a lot South Africa’s media attention. This thematic media highlight analyses some of the media articles that reported on the “scandalous” development.

Headline
Sunday Independent: “Mbalula in sex row”. The headline is relevant to the story as it reflects its content. Though the article does not explicitly report the verbal disagreements of Molamu and Mbalula, it can be deduced from Molamu’s published text messages (SMSs) that the two are in a row that emanated from sex encounter(s) the two hard.

City Press: “Mbalula in sex scandal”. This headline too reflects the content of the article fairly. Since Mbalula is a married man, it is justifiable calling the sexual affair outside his wedlock “scandalous” because he cheated on his wife.

City Press: “Ásoka” Mbalula- envy of his peers”. The “eye-catching” headline summarises the content of this opinion making it relevant to the article. Further, quoting Isoka demonstrates professionalism on the part of the writer. In other words, the writer is not endorsing Isoka’s behaviour as the “society” does.

City Press: “Always remember: the words we use shape our world”. The headline is perfect and does not perpetrate any gender stereotypes in as far as this “sex scandal” is concerned. Further, the headline summarises the gist of the article accurately.

Sowetanlive: “Mbalula claims plots are afoot”. The article’s perspective makes headline appropriate.

City Press: “Mbalula’s model speaks: I’m still standing”. The headline is relevant to the article as it gives an overall position of Joyce Molamu concerning the sex scandal. Further, the headline is enclosed in commas signifying that it is Molamu’s own words. This does not only demonstrate professionalism on writers’ side but it adds credibility to the article as well.

Sources
Sunday Independent: “Mbalula in sex row”. In a quest to tell a “sex row”, the article uses text messages Molamu sent to Mbalula. However, the paper does not tell the reader how the messages were acquired. In addition, the reporter does not write why s/he failed to access Mbalula’s responses to the published messages. Furthermore, the reporter made efforts to contact Molamu to supplement the published SMSs but s/he never did the same with Mbalula. This one sided reportage raises questions as to why the reporter did not make efforts to hear Mbalula’s side of the story yet he is prime source to the issue.

City Press: “Mbalula in sex scandal”. The article uses three sources; Mbalula, the model and an anonymous source. However Mbalula has been given more space compared to the model, the other prime source of this “sex scandal”. Further, the paper claims to be in possession of a series of text messages that the model and Mbalula exchanged but none of the model’s SMSs is published and no reason is given for not doing so. These ultimately make the story gender blind. On a positive note, the reporter professionally respected the model’s request by not publishing her name on her request.

City Press:” Ásoko’ Mbalula – envy of his peers”. Since the article is an opinion, the piece is written from a first person point-of-view. The writer is the main source of the story and everything is told from the writer’s perspective. However, including views of experts to comment on HIV/Aids, polygamy and Isoka among other issues raised in the article would have added more depth and value to the story.

City Press: “Always remember: the words we use shape our world”. This opinionated piece uses English writer and novelist Angela Carter to concretise the main argument of the story: the words we use shape our world. The writer further attributes Twitter, a social online network as a source of negative words she discussed in the article.

Sowetanlive: “Mbalula claims plots are afoot”. The article uses Mbalula and Molamu as sources. However Molamu is only quoted once while the rest of the story presents Mbalula’s side of the issue. Failure to give the two sources equal spaces makes the article gender blind. From the article, it would also be concluded that the reporter never interviewed the two sources and no efforts were made to do so. The whole Mbalula’s story is told from the letter he had written and got published in The New Age newspaper while Molamu’s three-word quotation got extracted from previous newspaper reports. This makes the article very shallow. Further, Mabalula is accusing Molamu of blackmailing. It was important for this reporter to seek Molamu reaction(s) to this accusation.

City Press: “Mbalula’s model speaks: I’m still standing”. In an attempt to give Molamu a voice through the media, this paper did an exclusive interview with her. Nevertheless, the article fell in a trap of stereotypical portrayal of women when it failed to among other things draw a line between Molamu’s public and private matters. While wanting to give readers an insight about Molamu’s business career, the article ended up delving into her personal shelves and revealed private information that is not relevant to the matter at hand.

Language
Sunday Independent: “Mbalula in sex row”. Apart from a sensationalised headline, the article uses rational language that does not perpetrate any gender stereotypes.

City Press: “Mbalula in sex scandal”. Overall, the article uses gender sensitive language. However, the article identifies the woman as Mbalula’s lover. This portrays women as “accessories” to men – they don’t have their own identities.
City Press:” Ásoko’ Mbalula- envy of his peers”. The article uses no sexiest or any language that perpetrates gender stereotypes. Wherever the author used sexiest or stereotypical term, he always distanced himself by quoting such words.

City Press: “Always remember: the words we use shape our world”. The article uses gender sensitive language. Considering that the main gist of the article is critiquing derogatory language used against women, the author analyses some of these pejoratives words and terms. She writes that “women who enjoy sex and unashamedly lay claim to their own sexuality are [called] sluts, while men who do the same are studs. Further, the writers writes that “on Twitter, the model…has been called a slut, a gold-digger and a serial extortionist while many said the minister was simply doing what most men do…and certainly not worthy of the front page”. In other words, the author exposes the negative perception that people have towards women for doing things that are acceptable when done by men.

Sowetanlive: “Mbalula claims plots are afoot’. The article uses gender neutral language.

City Press: “Mbalula’s model speaks: I’m still standing”. The article uses descriptive language that to a larger extent perpetuate blatant stereotypes. Instead of focussing on the issue, the article sarcastically describes Molamu’s looks, dressing and conclusively called her jezebel.

Visual images
Sunday Independent: “Mbalula in sex row”. No image was used.

City Press: “Mbalula in sex scandal”. No image was used.

City Press: ” Ásoko’ Mbalula- envy of his peers”. No picture in relation to the story is used except author’s.

City Press: “Always remember: the words we use shape our world”. No picture in relation to the story is used except author’s.

Sowetanlive: “Mbalula claims plots are afoot. No Image was used.

City Press: “Mbalula’s model speaks: I’m still standing”. The article uses four close-up pictures of Molamu lined up on the left side of the page and a picture of Mbalula at the bottom right. Although the article has used more pictures of Molamu compared to Mbalula, the captioning of the pictures leaves much to be desired. For instance, one of the pictures is captioned “Jezebel”. This perpetrates a stereotype of using negative language against women for doing things that are “acceptable” when done by men.

Story angle and perspective
Sunday Independent: “Mbalula in sex row”. Overall, the voice of Molamu through her SMSs dominates in the story. However, the story leaves a lot of questions unanswered because Mbalula is not quoted in the article and no effort was done to do so. Getting Mbalula’s views could have struck the much needed balance because this “sex row” involves two people, Mbalula and Molamu.

City Press: “Mbalula in sex scandal”. The overall impression given by this story is that Mbalula is a liar, unfaithful, a person who does not walk his talk and sexiest. The lead paragraph insinuates that the sports minister is unfaithful for having sex outside the wedlock. The second paragraph exposes the Mbalula as a person who does not walk his talk. “City Press can reveal that Mbalula, who preaches safe sex and abstinence, had unprotected sex with the model on at least two occasions…” Thirdly, the paper presents Mbalula as a liar. In the fourth paragraph of the article, Mbalula denies having slept with Molamu and calls her an “extortionist”. In paragraphs twelve and thirteen, the article publishes Mbalula’s SMS that proves beyond doubt that he had sex with Molamu

City Press:” Ásoko’ Mbalula- envy of his peers”. The overall impression of this article is that the Isoka behaviour though praised by many is spreading HIV, the virus that causes Aids. Further, the article is civic-educating the masses to desist from and see the wrong in Isoka behaviours. The article calls on people to change their attitude and stop praising Isoka tendencies. “Ideally his [Isoka] frowned upon, but the reality is that the masses see nothing wrong and this is the norm in our communities. The challenge we are faced with is how to change this attitude.”

City Press: “Always remember: the words we use shape our world”. This article represents a “cry” shared by gender activists about derogatory language that is used towards women because of their sex. The article mainly asks the society to “…reconsider the words we use, their gendered nature and how they shape our world…”

Sowetanlive: “Mbalula claims plots are afoot”. The article is predominated by Mbalula’s viewpoints. Since the whole scandal was politicised, this could be understandable. However, the article could have interviewed Molamu to refute or confirm allegations that “she was paid R150, 000 by national intelligence operatives…” This leaves the reader with an unanswered question as to whether she was indeed paid or not. Further, since Mbalula accuses the national intelligence operatives for getting involved in the ANC issues, it could have been proper to ask operatives to comment on the matter.

City Press: “Mbalula’s model speaks: I’m still standing”. The voice of Molamu dominates and is heard throughout the article. However, the article is portraying the model in a stereotypical way. Implicitly, the article seems to be portraying Molamu as a modern-day Jezebel. Instead of focussing on the sex scandal involving her and the sports minister, the article tells the reader about Molamu’s past affairs and how she has failed to maintain them. Although this could be viewed as necessary background information to the story, the way the article is crafted leaves much to be desired. The article seem to be siding with people who are calling the model an “extortionist”, “home wrecker”, “slut” and “brothel owner.” The article further calls the model Jezebel. Blaming or brandishing women with derogatory names in the aftermath of most sex scandal remains a stereotypical tendency that the society and the media perpetrate. Ironically, men are rarely blamed or brandished with derogatory terms compared to their women counterparts.

Training exercises
– What are some of the ethical issues that a reporter must to consider when reporting sex scandal story?
– Why is important to always interview all the parties involved in a controversial issue?