Malema’s girl is not news

2011-11-10 12:00

Today, Julius Malema – along with most of South Africa – heard the findings of the ANC National Disciplinary Committee. As news goes, this is fairly topical.

What is not fairly topical was the front-page story given to Malema’s supposed girlfriend, Lizelle Tabane, this weekend by the Sunday Times. The story was so exceptionally dull that I kept reading, hoping for some nugget of newsworthiness to justify its place on the front page, but remained bitterly disappointed to the end.

This story took the whole “Malema sells papers” premise way too far – and I’m speaking as someone who is capable of recognising hard news, but also enjoys a bit of smutty reporting from time to time. This was neither.

Let’s start with the headline (it’s a very good place to start…). Now, I must clarify here that I first saw the story online rather than on the paper, and I think that the print headline might have been different. Nonetheless, the headline read: “Lovestruck Malema shows off his model girl”.

The first problem that I have with that is that “lovestruck” is an assumption, and nothing in the story really supports that. If we’re to believe every word in the story, the most that Malema and his girl were observed doing was holding hands (“cavorting gently” we’ll deal with later).

The next point is that Malema hardly showed her off – arriving separately, refusing to be photographed and generally doing everything that they could to avoid detection by the press. They didn’t even sit together at the reception.

The rest of the article is a non-story. Every detail that they provided was simply an item the itinerary of a journalist on a journey to a series of dead ends.
“Malema declined to comment…”
“The coordinators declined to disclose…”
“They refused to be photographed…”
“They did not sit together…”

The article even says the “couple” arrived on separate flights, contradicting an upfront statement that Tabane accompanied Malema to Mauritius.

And other than the factual reporting of handholding, a rather vague accusation of “cavorting gently” in the waves makes the reader wonder what actually went on. “Cavorting” implies having sex while doing headstands – I’m not sure what a gentler version of that is. If it were anything else worth mentioning – like for instance, kissing, I’m sure that would have been recorded in detail.

The whole story has the feeling of someone trying to breathe air into a punctured beach ball. It never quite takes shape.

The final issue that made me wonder about the editors, the writer, the photographer and the whole Sunday Times editorial package was the accompanying photograph. Its caption reads: “Lizelle Tabane cooling off at Mauritius last weekend.”

For someone who apparently avoided the photographers all weekend, Tabane is staring fairly seductively at the camera. She’s also remarkably made-up, accessorised and attired for someone taking a dip in the ocean. To me, this photograph looks far more like a styled shot from someone’s modelling portfolio than a snapshot of someone enjoying a weekend away.

In addition, the photo credit goes to Siphiwe Mhlambi, an events and portrait photographer who doesn’t seem to work for the Sunday Times. I won’t make any definitive statements about this photograph not being taken in Mauritius that weekend, because it’s possible that Tabane took a break from the festivities to do a spot of modelling – but it seems unlikely.

All in all, this is pretty shoddy reporting and positioning. Too week for the front page, too dull for the back, this article was nonetheless propelled to the forefront because it contained the magical word “Malema”.

As much as I want to criticise the Sunday Times for this mentality, I also have to grudgingly accept that it’s the market of hysterical readers who have created an insatiable gaping maw of desire for Malema-related stories. All this article did, however, was make Julius Malema civilised and the Sunday Times ridiculous.

And I wonder how many hits this story will get…

- Georgina Guedes is a freelance writer. You can follow @georginaguedes on Twitter.

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