Menu
Ruling (Appeals Panel)

News24 vs SAAI

, ,

BEFORE THE APPEALS COMMITTEE OF THE PRESS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA

In the matter between:

News24                                                                                                   Appellant

and

Suider Afrika Agri Initiatief (SAAI)                                                 Respondent

Matter No: 32141

DECISION

  1. This is an appeal by News24 (appellant) against a Ruling by the Press Ombud dated 31 July 2025 which upheld certain complaints brought by Suider Afrika Agri Initiatief (SAAI/respondent). The Ombud found that the appellant had acted in breach of Clauses 1.1 and 1.2 of the Press Code in an article published by it with the headline “No, Akkerland Boerdery wasn’t expropriated without compensation – owners sold it privately for R80m.” A sanction in the form of an apology to the readers was ordered. The appellant is appealing the finding.
  2. It is important to understand the context in which the article was written, as summarized by the appellant and not disputed by the respondent. From the point of view of the appellant, there was a narrative peddled by some people or instances that there was a wholesale expropriation of white farms by the democratic government of South Africa, without compensation. This narrative was even carried in the media in some foreign countries; the Akkerland Boerdery farms were cited as an example. The articled was intended to counter that narrative, and sought to show that there was no such expropriation of white farms without compensation. As the heading indicates, part of the content of the article was that the farms concerned were not expropriated without compensation; they were in the end sold in a private sale to a mining company for a sum of R80m, whereas the government had offered to pay R20m for it. The farms were the subject of a land restitution claim. It is common cause that the land was indeed sold by private treaty for R80m to a mining company.
  3. The gist of the respondent’s complaint against the heading and the article was this: they gave the impression that the farms were never expropriated by the government. The respondent argues that the land was indeed actually expropriated; that a Notice of Expropriation was issued, followed by a Notice of Eviction. The respondent (or owners of the land) had to approach the court for an interim relief to halt the eviction pending the second leg of the litigation, namely, to have the expropriation set aside. A settlement was reached with the Minister in terms of which not only the interim relief was granted against the eviction, but also to set aside the Notice of Expropriation. The appellant did not dispute that the above steps were taken, but insisted that no expropriation took place, with or without compensation. The appellant maintained that no transfer of title from the landowners to the government ensued; it maintained that the only transfer of title occurred when the land was sold to the mining company.
  4. To start with, the Ombud did with respect misconstrue the headline. He said the following in his Ruling:

“57.   In my view, an ordinary reader would understand from the headline of this article that the farms of Akkerland Boerdery were not expropriated without compensation. Rather, it was sold in the private market for the sum of R80m.

  1. Had the sentence stopped at ‘No, Akkerland Boerdery was not expropriated without compensation’ it would have been accurate. But it goes further.
  2. It is misleading to include the consequent private sale into the same sentence without the necessary context. An ordinary reader would simply understand that it was not X (expropriation), but Y (private sale) whereas it was both X (expropriation albeit with compensation), followed by a court case reversing X and subsequently Y.“ (Own underlining)
  3. There was no basis to read in-between the two parts of the headline the word “rather” which completely changes what the headline conveys; in doing so, the Ombud created a contradiction whereas, without the “rather”, the two parts are independent, each one correct in what it says. There was no inaccuracy, and therefore no contravention of clause 1.1 of the Code by the headline because it is true that the farms “were not expropriated without compensation” (compensation was offered) and it is also true that “owners sold it privately for R80m”.

As will be shown later, the contents of the article were also in harmony with the headline and thus accurate.

  1. Regarding the finding that there was a contravention of clause 1.2, the Ombud based his finding on the fact that there was a material omission in that the article did not set out details such as that there was actual expropriation which resulted in the transfer of ownership of the land to the government and that the transfer of title had to be reversed etc. In this respect, the appellant argued in its Heads of Argument that the Ombud “impermissibly substituted a technical legal analysis for the Press Code standard.” There is merit in this argument. In that respect, it must be mentioned that, for its credit, the appellant did in fact state in the article that there were “some legal issues” – though of course without going into details. But, as appellant’s counsel pointed out, would going into such legal issues have been standard reporting for a journalist? That can hardly be the case. The gripe both the respondent and the Ombud had, was that the appellant was wrong not to mention that expropriation did occur, and was not just an attempt at it. In fact, the Ombud’s finding against the appellant is on the basis that a complete expropriation did take place and that the journalist should have reported so. Well, here is the problem: is it true, as the Ombud says, that a complete expropriation and transfer of title to the government occurred? Not quite! We deal with this in two ways.
    • Whether it is correct to say there was a complete expropriation (with or without compensation) and the transfer of title to the government occurred by operation of law: According to the Ombud that was the case. On the other hand, according to submissions by Mr Ngcukaitobi SC for the appellant, that was not the case. The basis of his argument, briefly put, was that as the land in question was the subject of a land restitution claim[1], in terms of section 35 of the Constitution, for an expropriation to be complete, the amount of compensation as well as the time and manner of payment must first be agreed to by the parties or be decided by the court; none of these happened in this case. Mr Hamman, for the respondent, did not quite offer any counter-argument to Mr Ngcukaitobi’s argument. The Constitution is of course the supreme law, and must therefore prevail over any other law. Where does Mr Ngcukaitobi‘s submission leave the Ombud’s basis for his Ruling that expropriation and transfer of title to the government did actually occur and that it should have been reported so in the article? It is not for this panel to rule who is right between the two counsel; the point we make is that a non-lawyer journalist could not have reasonably been expected to deal with these legal issues in a non-legal publication. The correctness of the Ombud’s basis is therefore at best doubtful; at worst, it is wrong; this leads to the next point.
    • Was there an omission, let alone a material one? In light of the above, can the argument stand that, by not reporting that a complete expropriation and transfer of title occurred, the journalist committed a material omission in breach of clause 1.2? Whose view was the journalist, a non-lawyer, supposed to reflect: the Ombud’s or Adv Ngcukaitobi’s? The Ombud was, as argued by the latter, wrong in holding that there was a breach of clause 1.2 through material omission. It must, moreover, be borne in mind that the article did at least mention that there were some legal steps that occurred.
  2. Lastly, it is important to bear in mind that the purpose of the article was simply to counter the argument that there was a wholesale expropriation of white farms without compensation, and that the Akkerland farms were often cited as an example. This is the context in which both the headline and the article would be understood by the reader. The focus of the article was not about the legal niceties involved, in which an average reader is in any case not interested.
  3. For all the reasons given above, the appeal must succeed; the following Order is therefore made.
    • The appeal is upheld.
    • The Ruling of the Ombud dated 31 July 2025 is hereby set aside.

Dated this 9th day of March 2026

Judge B M Ngoepe (Retired Judge President), Chair of the Appeals Panel

Ms J Smith, Member, Public Representative

Ms J Sandison, Member, Press Representative

For the appellant:

Adv T Ngcukaitobi SC, assisted by  Adv N Chesi-Buthelezi

For the Respondent:

Adv J G C Hamman.

[1] In terms of the provisions of the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994

Related Posts