Media should have walked out on Malema

JOHANNESBURG – All journalists present at an ANC Youth League media briefing in which a BBC reporter was called a ‘bastard’ by Julius Malema should have left in solidarity with him, the National Press Club said yesterday.

‘Journalists need to stick together. It is entirely appropriate to walk out should a news conference degenerate into a shouting match and should journalists be sworn at and insulted,’ said chairman Yusuf Abramjee in a statement condemning Malema’s behaviour.’This is not the first time that Malema has chosen to attack journalists and it appears to have become a trend in the past few weeks.’Malema was criticising the Movement for Democratic Change for speaking out against his visit to Zimbabwe from its office in Sandton, when BBC journalist Jonah Fisher mentioned the youth league leader lived in Sandton.An angry Malema retorted: ‘Here you behave or else you jump. Don’t come here with that white tendency, go out bastard, bloody agent.’Explaining the outburst later, Malema said the youth league and its leadership could not be undermined ‘in our own terrain’.’This is not a playground. This is not a beerhall. Don’t abuse us in our own space, in our own house… this is my house,’ he said referring to ANC headquarters, Chief Albert Luthuli House.Abramjee said such behaviour was ‘unacceptable’.The Congress of the People Youth Movement warned the ‘creeping tendency of the independence of journalist being undermined may reap us unwanted results.’It expressed concern over the incident and urged the media to boycott Malema and the ANCYL.The Democratic Alliance spokesman on rural development, Mpowele Swathe, said each time Malema ‘open[s] his mouth, he does damage to our prospects of attracting foreign investment, developing our economy and addressing inequality and poverty.’He was referring to comments Malema made at the briefing hailing Zimbabwe’s land reform program.’His praise for Zanu-PF land invasions, his assault on the Movement for Democratic Change, his assault on our own Constitution and the fact that he threw a journalist out of his press conference for asking perfectly legitimate questions, demonstrates with painstaking clarity that he shares the same deeply flawed and manifestly dangerous characteristics as Robert Mugabe.’ – Nampa-Sapa