In August 2015, I provided explicit evidence of Independent Online’s egregious bias. While this bias was widely known, it was (and remains) important to document clear instances of it. Without this sort of evidence, all one has are unsubstantiated impressions.
I noted in that article that according to a basic principle of justice, “Audi alteram partem”, one should hear from both sides of a dispute, and not from one side only. Without doing so, one cannot reach an informed judgement about which side is correct (or more correct). Although the principle is most commonly used in legal contexts it also relevant to the press. A medium that presents only side of a debate is not to be trusted.
I now present evidence of bias at the Mail&Guardian Online. This medium has regularly published statements by the University of Cape Town’s Black Academic Caucus (BAC). Although it did not publish the BAC’s statement of 1 October 2017 which was headed “Parading White Privilege” , it did republish a News24 piece with the sensationalist title “UCT test concession for Rocking the Daisies festival is ‘parade of white privilege’”, that not only quoted the BAC statement but also incorporated that statement’s title into the article’s heading.
The concession in question, which was granted by one of my colleagues in the Philosophy Department, led to an uninformed and hysterical moral panic and a flurry of reports and references in various media. This eventually resulted in the University leadership taking the unusual step of effectively directing a course convener to withdraw a concession.
Nearly a fifth of the article republished on the Mail&Guardian website was devoted to conveying the BAC’s view, as expressed in its statement. The report said:
The UCT Black Academic Caucus (BAC) said it was “humiliating and traumatising” that black students were made to be an “unwilling audience to exhibitions of privilege”.