Newell and the SABC: Silencing dissent, weakening journalism - Sara Gon

Key topics:

• SABC suspends Newell after she challenges Holocaust-Gaza comparison

• Critics say action undermines journalism and media plurality

• SANEF, editors silent as press freedom and debate weakened

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By Sara Gon*

Juliet Newell was “removed” from the SABC’s broadcasting schedule for being a journalist at a time when moments of journalism are increasingly rare.

Newell, a long-standing presenter on SABC, challenged Dr Mamphela Ramphele, who claimed that the war in Gaza was akin to the Holocaust. 

Newell did what any responsible journalist should do: she pushed back. She questioned a statement that was not only provocative, but deliberately framed to inflame. Ramphele’s comparison of the war to the Holocaust is not a small claim. It is not a matter of semantics. It is a loaded historical parallel with global resonance, one that risks distorting both history and the present. Any journalist worth their salt is compelled to interrogate it.

The interview arose from Ramphele’s issuing a statement on behalf of the Desmond Tutu IP trust, of which she is chair, comparing Israel’s military operation to Nazi actions against Jews in the concentration camps during World War II. 

Newell asked Ramphele if she didn’t think her statement likening the famine in Gaza to the Holocaust was “provocative”.

“What provocative? It is a holocaust,” Ramphele answered.

“But how can you compare them?” Newell countered.

“Why can’t I compare them?” Ramphele retorted.

“Because they’re different,” Newell answered. “I’m not saying Gaza isn’t horrific. It is horrific. But comparing them, it almost undermines what the Holocaust was all about.”

The consequence of the challenge to Ramphele’s claim was that the SABC “removed” Newell from its broadcasting schedule and justified this by saying that in doing so it “reaffirmed its commitment” to the Broadcasting Act and “its editorial guidelines designed to protect plurality of views, public trust, and credibility of content”, all of which the SABC breached in punishing Newell.

The SABC, one assumes, was also pressured to take the action against Newell because the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign complained about the interview. Instead of backing their own presenter for doing precisely what the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa Code demands – challenging potentially misleading or biased assertions – SABC management threw Newell under the bus.

They suspended her from the airwaves and issued a bloodless media statement citing compliance with nebulous “internal processes” and the Broadcasting Act. This was not about compliance with professional standards: it was about politics. It has exposed something rotten in our media and our public institutions. It is not simply about one presenter, one exchange, or one editorial call. It is about truth, courage, and the duty of journalism in a democracy that prides itself on a plurality of voices. And right now, too many in the media are failing that test.

Safeguarding plurality

The SABC acted not as a public broadcaster safeguarding plurality, but as a political actor calculating the path of least resistance.

If Newell was effectively punished for questioning that appalling and factually unsupportable comparison, the precedent is very disturbing. That is not journalism. That is propaganda by intimidation.

What makes this episode worse is not just the SABC’s cowardice and subversion of the standards of journalism. It is the silence – indeed, the complicity – of our wider media fraternity.

The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), which is supposed to be the watchdog of media freedom, has issued no statement in support of Newell. Not a word. When a journalist is censured for doing her job, you would expect a roar of solidarity. Instead, there is silence.

Worse, in the pages of the Sunday Times, TimesLive editor Makhudu Sefara chose to name Newell as “Mampara of the Week”. Think about that. A fellow journalist publicly ridiculed her for doing her job – for holding power and rhetoric to account. That is not merely unhelpful. It is betrayal. Sefara may be deluded enough to believe Ramphele’s libel, but to accept without question that challenging it makes Newell the fool is dark indeed.

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We must understand what is at stake here.

The Holocaust is a specific historical event: the systematic extermination of six million Jews and millions of others by Nazi Germany. It is not a metaphor or a political slogan to be bandied about whenever anyone wishes to heighten rhetoric. To equate Gaza with the Holocaust is not only inaccurate – it cheapens [both] the memory of the Holocaust, the reality of Palestinian suffering and the genocidal foundation for Hamas’s existence.

The inversion of the Holocaust would never be used about any of the many other conflicts recently or currently in progress. It is only used against the Jewish state because it will hurt and offend Jews, and it allows antisemites to charge Jews with the worst crimes imaginable to prove that the Jew is the epitome of evil. Other conflicts, religiously motivated or otherwise, that may be worse than Gaza, will never attract this comparison because the enemies are not Jews representing the Jewish state. 

Journalists must be able to interrogate such claims. If they do not, they allow language itself to be captured and weaponised. And when language is captured, truth is the next casualty.

By silencing Newell, the SABC has told every presenter in its newsroom: do not challenge. Do not question. Do not probe too deeply when campaigners deploy the most emotive terms. Nod. Smile. Move on. Or avoid the topic altogether. This is not journalism.

The BCCSA Code is crystal clear. Broadcasters are obliged to present news that is truthful, accurate, and fair. They must challenge and interrogate controversial statements. They must ensure that no single view dominates, that plurality is protected. Newell was fulfilling that obligation.

Her duty was not to be polite, or deferential, or to treat every assertion as sacred. Her duty was to try to flesh out the truth of a claim for the benefit of the audience – to push back when a guest made a claim that risked distorting reality.

The fact that she is the one deplatformed says everything we need to know about the priorities and professionalism of the SABC.

Let us call this what it is: bowing to the mob. The PSC and its allies know the game. Shout loud enough, threaten enough, and institutions will fold. The tragedy is that our public broadcaster has proved them right.

Impoverished

And so our national discourse is impoverished. Our public debate becomes one-sided. In reality, we do not debate where an emotional and erroneous assertion has become the orthodoxy. Our journalists self-censor. Our democracy is weakened.

Journalists have a duty to push back when others blur the lines. To do otherwise is to collude in a dangerous distortion of both history and present.

The SABC has done the entire country a disservice. It has deprived us of robust debate. It has undermined trust in its own commitment to plurality. It has weakened the role of journalism in holding rhetoric to account.

And by failing to defend her, SANEF and senior editors like Sefara have compounded the injury. Instead of solidarity, they chose silence  ̶  or mockery. Instead of standing for critique which one should expect from journalism, they have presented opinion as unassailable fact, allowing a falsehood to stand unchallenged. There is a striking absence in much of the legacy media of any curiosity over claims that seem hyperbolic.

Israel has undertaken repeatedly to end the war if Hamas released all the hostages. Israel would have been forced to abandon its goal of destroying Hamas, which started the war. But none of Hamas’s motives are questioned and no pressure has been put on Hamas to bring an end to Gazan suffering because those who we rely on to interrogate both sides of the conflict are failing us. Few in the legacy media simply ask why Hamas has refused to release all the hostages and force an end to the suffering of Gazans and Israelis. 

In the end, this is about whether we want a media landscape where journalists are free to question, to probe, to push back, or whether we are content with a press that echoes, flatters, and fears.

Right now, the signs are not good. The bullies are winning. The broadcaster is caving. The editors are silent. And the public is poorer for it. 

*Sara Gon is a Fellow of the SA Institute of Race Relations. She was an employee of the IRR for 10 years, in which time she helped develop the Daily Friend, latterly serving as its Contributing Editor. Her ‘hobby’ of writing letters to newspapers about South African politics landed her her role at the IRR. Prior to that, Gon was an attorney at Webber Wentzel, and was a co-founder and manager of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Gon now manages the Free Speech Union of South Africa, and is engaged in other projects.

This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission.