JOHANNESBURG. In a startling exclusive exposé, the Sunday Times has revealed damning evidence that its journalists are either illiterate hacks or cynical race-bating profiteers, running as breaking news a racist Facebook photograph covered by the Mail&Guardian in 2008. Meanwhile the ANC has thanked the tabloid for giving it yet another reason to gag the press.
Sunday Times journalists tipped off police about the photograph (dismissed as a hoax three years ago) as part of a process called “generating news in a slow week”. However it is not yet clear whether they acted as well-meaning but profoundly retarded illiterates, or as cynical profiteers.
This morning the newspaper’s spokeswoman, Hysteria McRaker, stood by the scoop, saying that either way it was unfair to assign blame.
She said Sunday Times journalists were far too busy screen-scraping content off Facebook to read rival newspapers. “Or to read anything, in fact,” she added, conceding that being able to read was no longer a requirement for Sunday Times journalists.
She said it was possible that journalists had known the story was old, and had taken it to the police in an attempt to profit off some “good old-fashioned race-bating”; but she begged South Africans to see the “horrifying bigger picture”.
“Whoever posed for that picture wanted to polarise as many people as possible,” said McRaker. “Which is why we decided to show it to as many people as possible.”
Two days before Julius Malema’s disciplinary hearing, at which South Africa will learn whether it will be run by lazy kleptomaniacs or diligent Nazis, many expected the Sunday tabloid to discuss the ANC’s succession debate.
However, McRaker conceded that the Sunday Times was having its own succession debate about the future direction of the paper.
“We’re still deciding whether we want to be a tabloid with lots of pictures, a tabloid with no pictures, an all-in-pictures tabloid, or do away with sentences altogether and just go with words randomly arranged on a page, like ‘BONK BUM SLEAZE RACIST ZUMA PENIS MALEMA TITS BLOOD DRUGS HOROSCOPES FOOTBALL TERROR WEDDING’,” said McRaker.
Asked why the Sunday Times chose to focus on race rather than the chilling depiction of an adult man apparently celebrating the murder of a child, McRayker said that “everybody knows that racism is worse than murdering children, or at least sells a lot more newspapers”.
Meanwhile the ANC has thanked Sunday Times and Sowetan owners Avusa for recent incidents such as Eric Miyeni’s racist column, a non-story about police officers having sex, and the weekend’s headline.
“We thought we’d have to fabricate examples of how the press was unprofessional and irresponsible,” said Deputy Gagging Commissar, Blackout Xenge. “But they’re basically begging us to silence them. You couldn’t script this shit better. Thanks, guys, and keep well until we see you at the tribunals.”
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