Zille lashes out at Cape Times over “fake news” article
Western Cape premier Helen Zille’s spokesperson has lashed out at the Cape Times for running what he calls a “fake news” story around the premier’s recent tweets on colonialism.
The Cape Times published a story on Monday (3 April) claiming that Zille would be facing internal racism charges from the DA, and that the premier was not the one who tweeted an apology for her comments, saying that she was on a flight at the time.
Zille’s spokesperson, Michael Mpofu said that the report was ‘fake news’, and that it was just the latest fabrication by the paper, who he claims has been engaged in an “8-month smear campaign” against the premier.
“The newspaper has proven once again that it has abandoned all interest in truthful, objective reporting. The printing of outright fabrications as a front page lead, shows how emboldened the Independent Group has become after withdrawing its titles from Press Ombudsman processes,” Mpofu said.
The DA on Tuesday confirmed that Zille would be facing charges within the party relating to her tweets, in which she said that colonialism didn’t only have negative effects.
According to DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, the party’s federal executive came to a ‘near unanimous’ decision that the premiere should face the charges, though there was no mention of what the charges were.
Mpofu said that no charge of racism exists.
According to the Cape Times report, the paper attributed the talk of ‘racism’ charges to ANC provincial secretary, Faiez Jacobs, who was expressing the ANC’s position on Zille’s discipline.
The author of the story made an assumption that the premier had no access to in-flight Wi-Fi on her flight, and implied that the premier could not have tweeted the apology.
Actual charges Zille faces
Maimane said that the decision to take Zille to task over her tweets was not solely based on her most recent gaffe, but rather because of her long history of making them.
The DA’s federal legal commission will determine if Zille has breached the following provisions of the DA’s federal constitution:
- 2.5.4.1 – publicly opposes the party’s principles or repeatedly opposes published party’s policies, except in or through the appropriate party structures;
- 2.5.4.2 – deliberately acts in a way which impacts negatively on the image or performance of the party;
- 2.5.4.5 – brings the good name of the party into disrepute or harms the interests of the party.
Zille has been labelled by social media commentors as “the Donald Trump” of the DA, playing off the US president’s penchant for expressing unfiltered social and political views over social media.
Trump has also made the term “fake news” a popular tactic to dismiss any reporting – irrespective of accuracy – that he disagrees with.
Before Trump’s use of the term “fake news” stories referred to ‘articles’ written with completely falsified information, specifically to evoke an emotional response from readers with the intent to ‘go viral’ on social media.
Articles with misinterpreted or inaccurate information were simply deemed “misleading” or “inaccurate”.
Read: DA to charge Helen Zille over colonialism comments
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