“Who the hell do you think you are? South Africa is a free country. We can take pictures of whoever we want and publish them in our magazine. If you want to stop me from publishing the pictures, you will have to get a court interdict to stop me. My journalists are just simply doing their work. If you feel aggrieved, go to the courts and ask for help.” These were the words of the Drum magazine editor Makhosazana Zwane-Siguqa when I called her to question why she sent her journalists to sneak at Muvhango actor Gabriel Temudzani’s wedding on Saturday which took place at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, Joburg. Gabriel plays Chief Azwindini Mukwevho on Muvhango.
My call to Khosi was a result of the fact that her magazine doesn’t have any rights to publish Gabriel’s wedding pictures except for Move! magazine.
So yeah, I might not be objective in this write up simply because I consider Gabriel a friend of mine and also because I was his wedding media coordinator together with Muvhango spokesman Eugene Kgalema Mametse. I will try and be objective though. If I am not, who said blogging is objective. As I was saying about the Drumgate...
Earlier this year, there were consultations with Drum magazine to give them exclusive rights to Gabriel’s wedding but the two parties – me and Khosi through her journalists, couldn’t reach any agreement and we discontinued talks, until last week as I shall state a little later in this article.
The next point of contact where we could have an agreement was the Move! magazine who wasted no time in acquiring the rights to the wedding and the two parties – me and Move! editor were both happy.
Move! has exclusive rights for wedding pictures and story, or so we thought. Then Drum journalists started their pestering and tricks into getting invited to attend the wedding on their personal capacity. When they couldn’t win, I personally refused to take bribes from their journalists. When I got irritated with their pestering who called, whatsapped, BBM’ed, DM’ed on Twitter, I quickly googled wedding venues in Centurion and gave them some wedding venue there, so as to tell them to get lost. This happened on Friday night.
During the course of last week, a Drum journalist sent an email claiming to want to come to the wedding and take pictures for their September celebrity wedding “glossy book”. When Gabriel consulted with me on this so called celebrity wedding book, I told him to tell them to take up their negotiations with me which they never did.
Come Saturday morning we are at the Botanical Gardens waiting for the wedding to start. The venue is so big it is hard to beef up security for gate crashers as there is another do taking place on the other end of Gabriel’s wedding venue.
As guests starts pouring in and everyone seated, The groom makes his entrance and so does the bride...and then two journalists from Drum magazine are spotted and are immediately approached but they ran away driving off. I call @Khosiandherdrum and she goes on a mean streak. When I tell her as much as we are in a free country, the rights to Gabriel’s wedding are reserved. I question her journalistic ethics and she starts mumbling not knowing what to say. As my questioning gets tougher, she hangs up the phone and I let her be.
Move! will be carrying the exclusive story of the wedding with extensive pictures in their edition of 12 June which will be available on the shelves from Friday 7 June. Drum will probably publish their out of focus and pixilated pictures in their edition of 6 June which will probably be available on the shelves on Friday 31 May. The thing is, Move! goes to print every Friday so by the time the wedding was happening, their next issues was at the printers. Drum prints on Wednesdays which gives it a chance to insert the pictures and a little write up about the wedding for this Friday’s issue.
“We expected Drum was gonna pull a stunt like this,” said a Move! journalist who was covering the wedding. Speaking with Gabriel about the matter he said: “I cannot believe Drum would stoop so low. They are believed to be a reputable publication but this just goes to show that they have no regard for other people’s business.”
The issue here is that Drum magazine has lost its original meaning and ethics. It no longer has the respect it used to command. It is more of a tabloid than a magazine. The Hollywood paparazzi tactics shows the clear direction of their editorial content. “Gabriel’s wedding is not in the public interest but is of interest to the public. Only a matter of public interest warrants invasion of privacy and not a matter of what interests the public,” I mentioned this to Khosi during our heated telephone conversation to which she didn’t know what it meant.
“At Drum we will do anything to get pictures even if you don’t give us the venue," their journalist, whom I believed was a great acquaintance of mine, threatened. That’s when I decided to give a wrong venue. “Remember Kabelo and Gail Mabalane’s wedding? We were not invited but we managed to get the pictures and write something.” That made a lot of sense to me because I remember reading that Drum and the pictures looked like they were taken with a cheap cell phone. They were out of focus and so pixilated such that their photo editor couldn’t do any justice to them.
Whether Gabriel will be suing the Drum to claim commission from their sales isn’t clear yet. The thing about civil cases is that they can take years and issues of sales of that particular edition will come into play and he can easily win the case just as he can easily lose it.
The general public opinion out there is that the Drum magazine is considered a prestigious publication because it has self-confessed to be “iconic” with Khosi once mentiong in her editorial: “Drum is synonymous with celebrity weddings”. However, a quick look at the Annual Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures for the first quarter of 2013 which is from January to March shows Move! is giving Drum a run for their money, therefore, there is no scientific evidence of their perceived prestige. According to the ABC figures, Drum only manages to sell about 118 000 copies on average per issue while Move! sells 113 000 copies on average per issue. The difference is 5 000 buyers.
If you are interested in the ABC figures, you would have noticed that Drum sales keep on falling year on year while Move! figures keep on going forward just like their tag line which says Move! the way forward. Drum is on the top three selling magazines in South Africa while Move is on the number four spot. So we can really see who is feeling the heat and taking punches when it comes to growth and reader penetration.
What boggles the mind is these two publications are all owned by Media24, share the same building and floor. Why Khosi would want to sabotage her colleagues is something that only she and the devil inside her know and are not willing to share except for saying freedom blah blah.
An insider who is privy to the catfights that are happening at Media24’s No 5 Protea Place in Sandton says that magazine editors do not get along and fight against each other. My source who is privy to Drum beats says Khosi is a tough cookie and don’t be fooled by the soft look you see in the magazine. “She tried to mimic Khanyi Dlomo in being a media darling and readers started complaining why she does a photo shoot for her editorials every week. Now that she failed with mimicking Khanyi, she wants to be the Ferrial Haffajee [City Press editor] of magazines.” A word of advice to Khosi, Ferrial chases stories that are in the public interest and stimulate debate about South African democracy and governance issues.
Last year I did my Journalism thesis which I researched about “One step forward, ten steps backwards, Ethical issues surrounding celebrity news reporting in South African print media”. One of the findings of my study was that most media is only concerned with circulation figures and not ethics as enshrined in the South African Press Code. As I mentioned in the past when Khosi was refusing to apologise to TV megastar Bonang Matheba about malicious and baseless article she published, I stated that only a legitimate public interest warrants invasion of privacy. Stealing pictures at a celebrity’s wedding is hardly public interest, and so was publishing the alleged medical records about Bonang Matheba.
A journalism book I read during my thesis literature review states clearly: “Ethical journalists don’t use the Constitution’s protection to be socially destructive”.
Drumgate doesn’t look like it will be coming to an end any time soon. “We will do whatever it takes to ensure any celebrity who gets married, we published their pictures, whether we are invited or not,” another Drum journalist tells me.
Is Khosi really that desperate to pocket performance bonus? Just a word of encouragement and advice to her: Don’t despair when the Drum’s numbers are falling, this is a current worldwide trend simply because of recession effects and that news can be easily accessible online.
If I was Jackson Mthembu I was gonna sing: “Don’t buy Drum magazine don’t buy.” But unlike Khosi, I know the true meaning of democracy i.e that people have a right to buy whatever publication they want to buy...and a true meaning of democracy means respecting people’s privacy and not trespassing especially when you know you are not welcome at a private space.
PS: Keep a lookout on SABC 1’s Selimathunzi about Gabriel’s wedding as Zizo Beda talks to the newlyweds live from the Botanical Gardens.
Follow me on Twitter: @TheRealMakisto