Yesterday was unprecedented in the SA media landscape.
Never has it been that a journalist stands in the dock as an accused person in a private prosecution brought by a person no less than a former president of the Republic.
News24 journalist Karyn Maughan appeared before the Pietermaritzburg high court yesterday alongside prosecutor Billy Downer.
The two face charges related to an alleged breach of the NPA Act.
Former president Jacob Zuma claims Maughan published his confidential medical records, which he claims were leaked to her by Downer, the man prosecuting him in his corruption trial.
Only this is disingenuous.
As part of the work of reporting on legal matters journalists request and are given court documents which set out each party’s case to be argued before court.
When those documents are filed in court they are part of the public record by default.
This was the case here.
The document Zuma claims was his medical records is a letter from a medical professional in support of his request at the time to postpone his trial.
It was part of papers provided to the court by Zuma’s legal team.
Therefore, to claim that the publication of his papers, including the letter, was part of a clandestine plot to infringe on his rights and harm his dignity is both baseless and opportunistic.
But perhaps it is to be expected from a man who has spent the latter part of his public life at loggerheads with the media for consistently demanding accountability for the myriad of accusations he faces.
Zuma’s private prosecution of a journalist for doing what journalists are permitted to do on a daily basis must be understood in the context of his continued attempt to silence those who continue to hold him accountable.
In their vicious attacks against Maughan and other journalists on social media, Zuma supporters have framed a narrative claiming that this case is about holding journalists who do wrong accountable.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
There are many effective means to hold journalists in the wrong accountable. Zuma has chosen neither.
Instead he has chosen a private prosecution as a form of retaliation against the credible work of one journalist and by extension attempting to intimidate others whose work puts his actions under public scrutiny.
This prosecution is egregious. Journalism is not a crime.
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