Dear Mr Hartley
Referring to your front page article Wanted: Facebook Racist of 28 August, I am deeply disturbed by what appears to be a wanton disregard for journalistic ethics and an irresponsibly cavalier approach to public rhetoric around race relations. Not only did placing this appalling image on your front page (instead of covering any one of a number of high profile and newsworthy events) smack of cheap shock tactics to sell copies, but it effectively stirred public outrage instead of contributing in any meaningful manner to debate around racial integration (or lack thereof) in this country.
But this is not my primary grounds for complaint. Subsequent investigation has suggested that this image has been run as a news story by Eyewitness News (amongst others) in 2008 and had already been investigated and proved to be a hoax at that time. Here is a link to a Mail & Guardian article discussing this post, as dated October 2008. The Washington Post and The Telegraph have already picked up on this story from the wires and are running it as fact.
There are, undoubtedly and regretfully, online hate groups based both in South Africa and the rest of the world. Running a story on them is, however, decidedly not front page news. Just as camera crews are instructed not to focus on rugby supporters brandishing the old South African flag in an attempt to deny them an entry into respectable media discourse, so The Sunday Times should, as a paper of supposed ethics, know not to lead with a story on a minority extremist group on, of all platforms, a facebook. Your actions have given these people the attention they crave and do not deserve.
You should be ashamed of the fact that you have stirred public response around the world, adding to the image of South Africa as a racist and hate-filled country in the name of a few thousand more sales. I know I, as a South African, am. Ard Matthews may have been publicly berated for disgracing his country by mispronouncing the national anthem, but you have misrepresented the country across the world.
Unless I am very misinformed of the facts, today marks the day when The Sunday Times became a cheap tabloid.
Yours sincerely,
Carla Lever
