“The idea that
'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one
meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over
the interests and rights of others.” Ayn Rand
Many are the times whereby
an editor of any publication has to account whether directly or indirectly
about what goes out in their house. First of all we have to understand that
there are many decisions taken before any story is actually published. And
those are your news values whereby a story is weighed against a certain
criterion as to determine the space it deserves in a publication and as to
whether there’s or no story at all.
I fully understand that
this is very complex for John in the public domain and John in the newsroom. So
allow me to be logical on my decision as to why I re-published the Khanyi Mbau
pictures from as I quoted a secondary source called Local Is Lekker. To be
honest, I had internal arguments pertaining to the publishing of this story but
I ended with a choice of publishing the pictures anyway.
Some of us have heard or
we all have heard of “Public Interest”, yes it is the appeal or relevance to
the general populace (You in this case), a news story of public interest (The
Mbau Story). What made the story a public matter or rather say interest are
what in the newsroom we call news values. And “Public Interest” on its own is a
news value.
It is then followed by
Prominence in this case, which means I will not allow people to put judgements
on my credibility as a Journalist because Mbau is a prominent public icon, she’s
not a private citizen which means her life is in public because of the fact
that she decided so and that’s one of the reasons that led me to publishing
her nude pictures on the website.
I would only agree with
critics about my decision that I am running a porn site if I took a private
citizen and made her private life public (Law will deal with such a case). In
the aforesaid I would point out the Sowetan when they decided to publish
photographs of private citizens and yet the editor went on to mumble about “Public
Interest”. So my question will be how do you turn a private matter into public
matter? Where does the law start and where does it end in such stupidity?
Proximity is one of the
news values that made me publish the story because it happened here in South
Africa geographical wise. So it bears immediacy or rather propinquity to be
treated as a public but not private matter. There are many news values linked to the concerned story but the above mentioned will give you a clear image of why I have published the story.
I am trying to pin-point
that GoXtra News is or was never a porn website at all. We are simply an
entertainment news publication. And I hope this will indeed open many sights on
what takes place in the newsroom, there’s more than laying your eyes on the
newspaper, ears on radio and eyes on television. There are key decision makers
and mostly they have their own personal agendas and or not limited to
interests.
I trust this shall make it
all clear why I published Khanyi Mbau’s nude pictures…
Thank you
Buchule Raba
The Editor
Follow me on twitter
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Email: editor@goxtranews.com
Follow GoXtra News on twitter
GoXtra News on Facebook
Buchule Raba
The Editor
Follow me on twitter
Email: editor@goxtranews.com
Follow GoXtra News on twitter
GoXtra News on Facebook
afta this,im sho everyone will be clear....big-ups to u Mr Editor,for always being on top of ur game and bringing us reviting and xciting entertainment news!
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