The purpose of News24’s reporting on Akkerland was to dispel the myth that the farm was expropriated without compensation. Judge Bernard Ngoepe from the Press Council’s appeals committee agrees, writes Pieter du Toit.
Judge Bernard Ngoepe’s finding in the Akkerland matter before the Press Council’s appeals committee is a victory for truth and fact-based journalism.
It affirms the importance of rigorous and independent news reporting amid a torrent of disinformation and lies spread by organisations and social media actors who have no regard for accuracy, honesty or fairness.
These actors, however, do have an affinity for outrage and for stoking panic and resentment. They have an interest in undermining the rule of law, in misrepresenting statute and misleading South Africans – including farmers. And they have an interest in lies becoming popular facts, using them for their own political ends.
For too long, a fiction has been peddled by some MAGA conservatives in South Africa that Akkerland, a farm in Limpopo, is an example of white-owned land being seized by the state, of expropriation without compensation and an unscrupulous government at war with white farmers.
READ | ‘X-Boer’: How Twatterbaas became a bridge between SA conservatives, MAGA universe
This narrative is dominant, especially in the United States, where its president depends on lies, half-truths and myth when formulating much of that country’s policies towards South Africa. It is a narrative concocted, refined and distributed by an expansive local ecosystem of Trump-aligned acolytes hostile to the post-1994 dispensation and seeking to capitalise on the American president’s nativistic impulses.
A problematic finding
In June last year, the Press Ombudsman, Herman Scholtz, found in favour of Theo de Jager’s Suider-Afrikaanse Agri Inisiatief (SAAI) after the organisation laid a complaint at the ombud about a story by News24’s Andrew Thompson headlined “No, Akkerland Boerdery wasn’t expropriated without compensation – owners sold it privately for R80m”.
SAAI is a conservative agricultural organisation closely aligned with AfriForum, which, alongside Solidarity, has been one of the main agitators attempting to influence the United States’ stance towards South Africa. It seemingly wants to position itself as an alternative to AgriSA, the multiracial umbrella body for commercial farmers, and is openly hostile and contemptuous of John Steenhuisen, the minister of agriculture.
READ | No, Akkerland Boerdery wasn’t expropriated without compensation – owners sold it privately for R80m
They argued that News24, in its Akkerland piece, misled its readers, that its reporting was inaccurate and untrue because the farm was expropriated and asked Scholtz to sanction News24.
Which, incredibly enough, he did.
Thompson’s fact-checking of the Akkerland matter occurred during a time of heightened tension and public debate around the matter of expropriation, rural crime and violence and international reporting related to this. These instances of international reporting referred to Akkerland as a prime example of land seizures (land grabs) and were covered as far afield as New Zealand.
It neatly played into the local MAGA elements’ narrative-building about South Africa as a failed, murderous state where a corrupt government is poised to wipe out its white citizens, where farmers are under perpetual siege, warding off attempts to drive them into the sea.
A matter of law, not politics
Arguing News24’s case in front of Ngoepe, a former judge president of the North Gauteng High Court, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, explained that Thompson and News24’s motivation was to “debunk the myth peddled abroad” that Akkerland was “seized” or that it was an example of expropriation without compensation.
“These people who say that are lying. The farm was sold for R80 million. These organisations who say otherwise want to sensationalise the matter, because they want to force a comparison between South Africa and communist states, or countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe, and more especially Zimbabwe (where indiscriminate land seizures took place),” Ngcukaitobi contended.
ALSO READ | Akkerland deception: The Limpopo farm that became a tool to inflame expropriation fears
He told Ngoepe that it is “nonsense” to argue that Akkerland was “seized” and explained that expropriation is a legal process, quite distinct from land “seizure”, which the Constitution and the law do not allow. Big headlines and blustering speeches “about land seizures might create some heat but [do] not shed light on the truth”, he added.
Scholtz’s ruling was also “unfortunate” because it endorsed apartheid legislation – the Expropriation Act of 1975, Ngcukaitobi said. “This is a matter of law, not politics.”
A clear ruling in favour of News24
Ngoepe’s ruling was unequivocal: News24’s reporting was accurate, its headline spot-on and Scholtz’s finding dead wrong.
READ | Akkerland: ‘No inaccuracy and no contravention of the press code’ says Judge Ngoepe
The net result is that there is no argument with Thompson and News24’s reporting: Akkerland was not expropriated without compensation, and it is patently not an example of land seizures, despite what frothing social media figures or political actors and Trump devotees might say.
The information war is vicious and relentless. But it is the job of journalists like Thompson and News24 to seek the truth – or the closest reliable version of it – despite what popular opinion might say and in the face of attacks from people like De Jager.
SAAI’s defeat at the appeals committee is a win for fact-based, skilful journalism – and for the truth.
– Pieter du Toit is News24’s assistant editor overseeing investigations.
