The South African Jewish Report has been expelled from the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA), on Friday with immediate effect after refusing to obey rulings from the Acting Press Ombud and the PCSA Chair of Appeals, judge Bernard Ngoepe.
This is the first time in 20 years the press council expelled a member. Judge Phillip Levinsohn said the decision was taken after a lengthy correspondence and after the SA Jewish Report was found to have disobeyed the rulings against it.
“The SA Jewish Report appealed the ruling by acting ombud Johan Retief in the complaint, SA BDS Coalition and GIWUSA v SA Jewish Report, but their application for leave to appeal was dismissed by judge Ngoepe,” said Levinsohn.
The complaint was lodged by Hassen Lorgat of the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance on behalf of the SA Boycott Division and Sanction (BDS) Coalition and the General Industrial Workers Union of SA (Giwusa), after a cartoon on the Clover dairy labour dispute was published on their respective social media pages. At the time, an Israeli Central Bottling Company was granted the go-ahead to take over Clover.
On 22 October 2020, Jewish Report published an article titled Antisemitic Clover cartoon is BDS’s sour ‘last gasp’. The complaint was that the publication labelled BDS as anti-sematic. The council spent time trying to resolve the issue through correspondence with the SA Jewish Report.
“They then refused to publish the ruling against them. SA Jewish Report also abandoned a second complaint, SA BDS Coalition vs SA Jewish Report, after losing another for leave to appeal by judge Ngoepe.”
Levinsohn said: “The SA Jewish Report then attempted to withdraw from the Press Council rather than publish the rulings. You cannot do that.
“It is a great pity that we have had to expel them, but we cannot tolerate a member of the Press Council wilfully refusing to obey rulings of the press ombud and the chair of appeals.
“The Press Council is a voluntary, co-regulatory, public-dominated body which, inter alia [among other things], mediates and adjudicates complaints against its members in terms of the press code,” said Levinsohn.
Source: Times Live, Politics web, The Bulrushes, image from The Bulrushes
