#Alex Crawford, #Skynews & English Gutter Journalism. Cost?

ENGLISH GUTTER JOURNALISM -
I love the English. Their sense of humour, their mentality and many other things or institutions which are English. This includes the royal family, Sky News, English pop bands, following English politics, especially PMQ's, English soccer, and English Comedies. (Yes Minister, Fawlty, Black Adder etc)


Despite the above, there is, I am afraid, a certain pleasure some of the English appear to take in putting down other people, and often other countries. English reporters & tv journalists often relish reporting about failings in other societies and they do so with a smugness and with a gratuitous malice which is often absent in reports by journalists from other countries.


This is especially so if the comparative situation back in England favours England. Perhaps they do so because it seems to make their viewers at home feel better about themselves and their own lives.


Shortly prior to the FIFA World Cup tournaments in South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014, the BBC, Sky and other English networks in particular seemed intent on outdoing each other in their reports on all manor of local problems, e.g. crime, drugs, poverty, etc. They competed too in trying to justify this as actual investigative journalism, and a minority of it might indeed have been so, but the timing tends to give them away.


It comes across as smug and superior.  Also as a bloody minded unwillingness to allow someone else, or some other country to enjoy their moment to shine without digging for some mud to throw at them. As a foreigner, I would take it personally, except of course, that I know the English a little better than that.


The English media don't only go for foreigners who shine, but for anyone who dares to shine, including their own.


Princess Diana is the most glaring example of this unpleasant, somewhat nasty, and largely English trait. They love to build one of their own up, and having done so, their media can't wait to catch them doing something wrong, so that they can tear them down equally as quickly. The poor +Susan Boyle is another. The English Media rushed to sing her praises when she first tried out for that talent show and surprised everyone with her talent, but seemingly couldn't wait to pull her down at every turn. She eventually sought medical help to deal with this if I recall.


Perhaps its inherently English to resent those who are successful or those whose turn it is to shine. Whatever the cause is, the English media appear to feed off the English public's need for such journalism. Either the English media need to change or the English public need to demand a change.


This is not to suggest that gutter reporting, or the need to build up and to destroy celebrities etc. is a uniquely English trait. The things I complain of can be found anywhere. Around the world, many people seem to find a perverse pleasure in watching so-called media Idols fall. Perhaps it makes ordinary folks feel better about what they may regard as their more mundane lives.


Few would deny, however, that of the World's media, the English are considered the worst. i.e. the cruellest. If I am right in this, then it follows, surely, that English media are in turn a reflection of the majority, or at least, a significant minority, of English media readers or watchers. 


A successful American Actor, businessman or comedian (can't recall which) was once asked on an English programme to describe what he viewed as the major difference between the English and Americans. I can't recall who it was, but I dare say that I believe the question was asked against the backdrop (at that time) of Americans being more successful in the applicable field than the English.


The answer the guy gave floored me. He immediately said that whilst the two nations were very similar in many ways (distant "English" speaking cousins after all) there was one distinct difference which he felt was telling.


If there's a cup which is filled to the middle, he said, most Americans will say its half-full whilst most English will say its half-empty.


And he felt that frame of mind had significant results.


The English fear failing since they feel they may be mocked when they fail, whilst Americans view a failure as an opportunity to learn a lesson and they believe those around them think similarly.


Why I wrote this article
I wrote this article in response to a report on Sky News by Alex Crawford following the Dewani Acquittal. See a link to the details in my Dewani Blog here:


http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.com/2014/12/dewanitrial-to-after-blasts-case.html

In short, Alex attempts to create the impression that hit men are easy to find and to hire in South Africa. She does so in an attempt to prove her own misrepresentation of what the Judge said to be right. But the effect of her gutter journalism was to create an impression that South Africa is a place where hiring hit men is not uncommon.


The true facts are that she deliberately sought out people who seemed to be gangsters, and the crimes these people were recounting are crimes against fellow gangsters, mostly from opposite gangs. This type of criminal and the gang violence they are involved in has nothing whatsoever to do with the Dirwani case. 


This is not to deny that many South Africans are very poor and some are desperate enough to kill or even to agree to a hit for what, in the eyes of her English viewers, would be shockingly little.


The point is that whilst our crime rate is high, and whilst South Africa is violent, reports of anyone poor being paid by affluent locals or foreigners to do a hit on someone (outside of gang related violence which occurs largely in areas affluent people avoid) are highly uncommon.


Here is what the Judge actually said..word for word.....


Here is what the Judge actually said:

23.1.103.1 The accused met Mr. Tongo at the airport when he was looking for a taxi to take him and his wife to the Cape Grace Hotel. Mr. Tongo was a shuttle operator, he was neatly dressed and his car was in a good condition. It was never suggested that the meeting between the accused and Mr. Tongo was pre-arranged. In other words, the accused simply approached Mr. Tongo because he was the first taxi driver he came across as he walked out of the airport.
23.1.103.2 On their way to the Cape Grace Hotel Mr. Tongo attempted to sell his services as a guide to the accused and his wife, offering to show them around Cape Town. There could have been no indication to the accused that Mr. Tongo was anything other than a law abiding shuttle operator and a guide. Can this court, without some credible corroboration, for one moment accept that the accused, after he had been in Mr. Tongo's company for approximately 30 minutes, would without more approach him with a request that he find somebody to kill his "business partner".
23.1.103.3 It is even more improbable that Mr. Tongo, who says he has never been involved in any criminal activity, would virtually immediately agree to contact his friend Mr. Mbolombo to obtain the services of a hitman. Even if one accepts that he was offered R5 000,00 at this stage, it must be kept in mind that Mr. Tongo testified that in a good month he earned between R30 000,00 and R40 000,00 per month. Again the question arises: would such a person risk his vehicle, his income, his future and his freedom for a mere R5 000,00? It is equally strange that Mr. Tongo immediately approaches Mr. Mbolombo, who is a hotel receptionist, who on his own evidence, has the wherewithal to contact people telephonically because he works as a receptionist in a hotel. It is even stranger that Mr. Mbolombo, without any promise of financial gain, almost immediately agrees to assist by phoning Mr. Qwabe.


Despite this, the mean spirited, inaccurate report is happily broadcast to millions, and the impression it creates that South Africa is known for its hits by hit men and it implies or reinforces the myth that South Africa is not a safe place for foreigners to visit.


The facts are that most tourists who come to South Africa, and who take sensible precautions about where to go and not to go and who follow travel advice, will not have any problems and at worst a few may encounter some petty theft from a hotel room or the like. Exceptionally, serious crimes on foreigners do occur in South Africa, but often an analysis of the reasons for this show a departure from common sense precautions or travel advice.


Why do the English media love to dramatise  or exaggerate the situation here when it might cause many tourists to go elsewhere and cost South Africa, including our poor, dearly in the process?


The point I am making is that this type of Gutter Journalism is not worthy of a respectable journalist like Alex Crawford nor is it worthy of a channel like Sky News. I believe that if Alex looks back on her article and that interview with the gangsters against the passage of the judgement in question, she will admit that this was not her finest hour. At least, I would hope so.


English superiority
Alex's Sky news report, and similar reports misconstruing, focusing upon or exaggerating the violence in South Africa might play well to an English audience who may feel the need to feel superior about how much safer they are in England. Yet this might not be altogether true, and even if it is true, it might easily change. 


For example, we don't have soldiers being brutally attacked and killed for no reason in our streets. We don't have Jihadi plots, like the recent one foiled in England, to behead an innocent member of the public in public in England.


We don't have to be vigilant of a 7/7 type attack on South African public transport. We don't have one of our citizens on television murdering and beheading foreigners in Syria/Iraq. And most importantly, we don't face the threat of the return of hundreds of trained British born Isis Jihadi's now ready to take their attack to the English Infidels.


Yes, UK intelligence will try to prevent the return of these people but several million illegal foreigners now living in the UK are proof that this might not be possible.


I hope such mass attacks on English soil will never occur, but if they do, David Cameron or the next British PM will be on TV trying to say that Britain is Open for Business and for Tourism. England will need some friends and it will require foreign media to report in a balanced, non-hysterical manner on the security situation in the UK.


You will need to have foreigners saying, yes, there is a small risk, but we're still going to Britain because we believe its safe, and because if we don't, and if we change our plans, the terrorists win and that's bad for everyone.


How the English media, and their readers and viewers, revel in or refuse to revel in the challenges facing other countries may one day come back to bite England at a time when the English may find that they have need of some friends.


Siegfried Walther 2014