News24 editor Adrian Basson has come under fire on social media for running a false story about a man known as ‘Jan Braai’. The outlet was forced to issue a retraction and apology, in what can only be termed a flagrant disregard for fact-checking and basic journalism standards.
A press release issued on heritage day states:“News24 published a story based on a Food Lover’s Market marketing video after people experienced the video as racist. We approached Jan Braai and angled the story around his denial of the racism allegations that stemmed from the video, which were already in the public domain. As soon as the more fulsome CCTV footage came to light, we updated the story. In hindsight, News24 should have insisted on seeing the full CCTV footage of the event before publishing a story about the honestly held views of readers, based on partial video footage released by Food Lover’s Market. We apologise to Jan Braai and the other individuals involved. – Editor”
Of course all of this is merely a sop to those who feel aggrieved at a similar incident involving one Renaldo Gouws, who only a week earlier was seen in videos on X.com handing out Christmas gifts to black kids, one of his many philanthropic endeavors, made years before he became an MP, and around the same period in which his somewhat amateurish video containing theatrics on a point about ‘hate-speech’ was presumably made.
Context matters when it comes to video material, but it seems the press are increasingly driving a narrative in which mere utterances and circumstantial evidence is enough to indict persons of racism.
The people of X.com were having none of it when they rose to defend Jan Braai: