EVERY once in a while the wire services throw up an item that rises head and shoulders above the grey wash of the news ether and screams for our attention. 

Such an item was the statement on Thursday by the Higher Education Transformation Network condemning what it termed "the continued irresponsible journalism practices perpetrated by the Daily Sun."

Of particular concern, according to the network's executive director, Sethole Reginald Legoabe, was the tabloid's "downright gutter reporting" which it "peddled to four million South Africans", most of them poor.

And who exactly, I hear you asking, is the Higher Education Transformation Network?

Good question. According to their website, they're a network of alumni from various South African tertiary education institutions who are committed to a more "equitable and meaningful access to education, knowledge, skills and learning to ensure an education system that is more accessible by the marginalized and the poor", and so on.

On paper, it all seems very noble and stuff. But they have a record of baseless and often loopy attacks on Higher Education SA, the body that represents the country's public universities, accusing them of all sorts of heinous offences, such as meeting in "air conditioned luxurious offices" to devise various ways in which to derail "the fast-tracking of transformation." 

In this regard, the HETN have unashamedly thrown in their lot with Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to "reverse the brain drain" and they apparently support without reservation his fiendish plot to wipe out the humanities and thereby devalue South African academic qualifications to such an extent that our graduates may not find work abroad in their chosen fields of expertise.

And speaking of which, it would certainly appear that HETN's Legoabe is something of an expert on journalism. Not. 

"Whilst poor communities utilize their last pennies R2.50c to purchase the [Daily Sun] with an expectation of receiving quality responsible journalism," he wrote, "readers are confronted by impossible stories of ‘evil' animals, ‘zombies', ‘tokoloshies', unbridled sex terms and love triangles as well as unashamedly graphic pictures of violent murders, mob lynching as well as xenophobic reporting. (sic)

"It is the opinion of the network that the Daily Sun's irresponsible reporting propagates barbaric conduct amongst poor communities and propagates continued superstition and witchcraft beliefs by poor communities against women, the elderly, violence against African immigrants, animal cruelty whilst legitimizing mob justice and preying on impoverished communities' frustrations and fears."

It is a fundamental truth in news rooms that those who elect to advise the media on "responsible reporting" are, in fact, the very people who would inflict the greatest harm on journalism. 

Often it is the politicians - by definition a needy group of narcissists and psychopaths who feel unfulfilled when not bothering other people - who insist they know what's best for the press. It makes a change, then, that a bunch of supposedly learned oafs should now presume to tell a newspaper with four million readers - readers so loyal, mind you, that they'd use their last pennies to get a copy - how to run its business.

And what of the Daily Sun's fare of unbridled sex terms and love triangles? Surely this is part of a newspaper's mandate to inform, educate and entertain? Who wouldn't want to know more? Why shouldn't the sex terms be unbridled? What about triangles? How are they applied, and do they need batteries? 

As for witches and zombies, why not? That stuff is real for many South Africans. 

Even I, who supposedly should know better, have written about zombies and to this end have informed readers of several high-end publications that President Jacob Zuma's friend and benefactor, Shabby Shaik, has for some years now been a member of the living dead.

As a zombie, Shaik's family keep him chained to a pole in the garden of their Durban home where they throw raw meat at him at suppertime. From time to time, though, he would escape and make off for the nearest country club where he would roam the links, drooling like a beast, and attempt to bite reporters.

And last week, when he spoke of how he used to outwit the security forces in the bad old days, Zuma reportedly did so in language that his KwaNyamazane, Mpumalanga audience could well understand: "I used to practise witchcraft around here, bewitching the Boers during apartheid." 

Whether or not he was speaking figuratively is neither here nor there. All you need remember is that our president apparently knows a thing or two about the second coming of Jesus Christ and is of the firm opinion that God will curse those who don't vote for the ruling party.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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