The launch of a pro-government newspaper in South Africa was postponed on Wednesday after the editor and four senior staff quit hours before the first issue was to go to press.
The New Age promised “more positive” news and to highlight the achievements of the governing African National Congress (ANC). Its owner, the Gupta Group, has close links with South African President Jacob Zuma. The paper was to hit the streets on Wednesday morning, but at 3pm on Tuesday there was a staff mutiny involving the editor, Vuyo Mvoko, his deputy and three other senior staff.
Gary Naidoo, managing editor of the New Age, told Talk Radio 702: “We were ready to go to print. We withheld that publication with respect for those editorial staff that have stayed on ... We did not anticipate this.”
He estimated that the paper, already delayed from the middle of last month, would be published in “maybe a week, two weeks.”
The journalists who walked out said in a statement: “We have taken the decision that it would be neither proper nor professionally acceptable for us to speak publicly about the reasons for our decision.”
There were reports of a disagreement with the owners over the paper’s editorial stance. Mvoko was understood to have felt his authority was being undermined.
The New Age’s owners are Indian businessmen who arrived in South Africa in 1993 and built their fortune from computers. They have a nine-year relationship with Zuma and his family. Atul Gupta is said to be a close friend of Zuma; Gupta’s brother Rajesh and Zuma’s son Duduzane are business partners.
The walkout by staff came on national press freedom day in South Africa, an event marked by protests and debates because of new measures being considered by the ANC.
The party is pushing for the creation of a statutory media appeals tribunal and new laws that would broaden the definition of official secrets, with whistleblowers and journalists who infringe them facing up to 25 years in prison.
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