As a young reporter for Daily Maverick, I was assigned to cover a press briefing by the South African Students Congress held at Luthuli House, to announce the 2018 SRC election results and the general performance of the ANC-aligned student movement.

As I entered Luthuli House for the first time, I was surprised that so few journalists were present. I sat in the first row as I always do, to make sure I hear everything said, even the jokes and off-the-cuff comments. My editors, Jillian Green and Janet Heard, have always stressed, to my impressionable mind, the importance of taking a mental step back to see things from all viewpoints and from different angles.

By that they mean, when it comes to covering a story, things are not as they seem. To discern the truth, one has to be aware of and juggle the public relations agenda of the politician/activist with one’s own expectations or prejudices, as well as multiple players in and outside the story, and myriad perspectives.

I sat down, took out my notebook, looked around the room to survey the multiple players in attendance and got ready to listen. The other journalists were setting up their audio and video gear. We engaged in small talk to kill time while we waited for the student leaders to arrive and for the press conference to start.

Finally, the young leaders swaggered into the room and sat at the conference table set high on an ANC-branded stage, towering over us. The deputy president, Luyanda Tenge, asked us if we needed time to get ourselves ready (although they were half an hour late).

In his opening remarks, he explained the purpose of the press conference — to dispel the ongoing notion that Sasco was losing ground to the EFF Student Command. Shortly afterwards, he introduced the president of Sasco.

Press statement in hand, the president, Avela Mjajubana, went to the podium and began his speech. He spoke about the approaching 2018 student exams, the mental health of students, alleged corruption in universities, Sasco’s plans for the remainder of the year, support for President Cyril Ramaphosa and the 2019 general elections. He condemned the EFF and pointed to its link to the unfolding VBS bank scandal (while silent on ANC links to the bank’s demise).

The young president stressed that although Sasco had lost some universities in KwaZulu-Natal (an ANC stronghold), they had gained ground in Limpopo (an EFF stronghold) and Gauteng. And that they still had majority control of TVET colleges.

He concluded by stating that Sasco controlled a majority of universities in the country.

Having covered SRC elections before, I was aware of the dynamics of university politics and the grievances of students on the ground. Although the young leader was correct that Sasco was winning some elections, I have learnt that things are much more complex — which is the very nature of South African politics.

For example, Sasco had won one campus at UJ and a few Unisa campuses which they concluded belonged outright to them. Winning a campus in a university does not mean you control the entire SRC. Low voter turnout among students plays a huge factor in who wins — which is not necessarily a sign of approval. They won two universities in Limpopo by a small margin because of coalitions with the Student Union for Christian Action, Young Communist League and the ANCYL. And TVET colleges go to the polls only in February 2019 — who knows how the ground might have shifted by then?

When pressed about exact numbers and the specific campuses they won, the young leaders shuffled a few papers on their desk and finally said they would check the numbers and send them.

I have not yet received the exact numbers.

The claim, of course, was that the ANC-aligned student movement was winning the SRC elections and that this was a decisive mark of disapproval for the EFF Student Command. In part, this was true in the sense that they won back campuses from EFF Student Command — and not because of students’ confidence in Sasco — but Sasco also lost further campuses to the EFF Student Command.

Overall, Sasco took six universities in 2018, while the EFF Student Command took 12 of 27 universities. The claim that these SRC elections showed ANC’s strength ahead of 2019 was obviously false. Further, the elections instead demonstrated the strength of the EFF Student Command.

Another significant factor was how throughout the year students had been complaining about the EFF Student Command’s inability to deliver on campaign promises and their style of governance where they had won the SRC the previous year, in places like Wits, Turfloop and Univen (University of Venda). And so while the Student Command gained ground in new territory (KwaZulu-Natal) where it had not led before, it could not hold its own ground because of the challenge of shifting from opposition to governance.

And without President Jacob Zuma as a thorn in the flesh of the ANC, Sasco was able to regain its normal voters only through coalitions and heavy funding from the mother body, while the EFF Student Command lost some of its core supporters because of a disappointing term in office.

The dynamics on the ground are complex, hidden behind smiles and nicely written political statements.

It is the politicians’ game to misinform and attempt to win people to their side by any means necessary. As the referee of the game, I have learnt that my job is to search for truth hidden behind the bravado and within the facts.

And yes, I must admit that the young leaders of Sasco are not the skilled politicians who dominate the national discussion and who are proficient in the art of vagueness and misinformation.

I am also not an award-winning investigative journalist with years of experience.

But the truth is the truth, no matter how long it takes to uncover it.

And youth and inexperience might not be a disadvantage in today’s political landscape. It could be that when a story is seen through the eyes of experience — an already fixed expectation of what is going to happen through years of covering the same thing — it might also taint the viewpoint of the journalist, as much as inexperience might obscure important details.

Journalists in South Africa come from a nearly repressive term with former president Jacob Zuma, where we feel as though we mitigated a disaster. It refreshed memories of apartheid-era times when the lives of journalists were at risk.

We are also in an era of global populist movements, both on the left and on the right, where we are seeing other countries descend into authoritarianism. And we fear that one of these days, South Africa will be next — and we need to be proactive.

The best way to make it clear that a politician or business mogul is a danger to our democratic ideals is to show it. No amount of name-calling and comparisons with historical dictators can help change the minds of the people.

By blatantly declaring that this or that politician shows signs of authoritarianism and therefore resembles a former dictator like Hitler defeats the purpose. To the reader, they see a journalist already making conclusions for them. And it betrays our trust in the public’s ability to discern for themselves.

The platform we, the journalists, have puts us in a powerful position to choose content and potentially misrepresent or censor voices. The public is well aware of that and is suspicious of our profession. This is besides corporate interests that might interfere with editorial freedom because of the need for funding. At this point, we are damned if we do not inform the public and doomed if we become too personally involved.

It seems to me that the only way out, in a world of fake news and biased reporting, is to show the audience what we see — as we see it and as it happens, at all times, with no blinkers and no filter of paternalistic experience or opinion to help the reader. As the philosopher Blaise Pascal puts it, people are more convinced by reasons they find themselves than those they are told by others.

Let us show and not tell.

Allow the reader to enter the room, the rally, the interview. Detail the statements made, their relation to one another and the overriding backdrop. Describe the event and the mood — sift through the public relations facade of the actors on stage and interrogate their intentions and their accompanying actions.

Bring in more voices that agree, disagree and hold an alternative view on the issue. No one can deny the importance of facts, statistics and numbers. I have learnt that the work of reporting must bring in all these factors to paint a full picture of the issue. Then the reader will decide what to do with it.

Through this, we can encourage a discerning readership which participates in the finding of facts by evaluating the merits of a story. By giving multiple perspectives on an issue, the reader is able to judge which ones best represent their view and everyday experiences.

Journalists must allow the reader to see the full extent of the story — the good, the bad, the intolerance and the fightback — without drawing conclusions for others. This requires a commitment to try to suppress long-held beliefs and delusions of being a writer-activist, at least while reporting.

South Africa has emerged from a long history of state censorship and media bias against liberation heroes and stalwarts. These wounds are still raw. So when people see even a slight bias, to them it is a serious cause for concern — as it should be to all of us.

To remove oneself from the story requires an undying belief that “no lie can live forever” and “truth crushed to Earth shall rise again”, but only in its own time — without us forcing it. DM