Dismissed editor of The Citizen, Steve Motale has vowed to fight his dismissal legally.
On 28 November, The Citizen newspaper announced that it had terminated Motale’s employment contract with immediate effect. He had been suspended.
Read: Journalists take their grievances to the street
On the same day, Motale was interviewed by ANN7 and he stated that the matter would not go unchallenged, and his legal team was already handling it. He also alleged that he had been dismissed without a hearing.
He tweeted:
My repeated requests to be subjected to a disciplinary hearing all fell on deaf ears. Now let the courts have a final say.
— Steve Motale (@SteveMotale) November 29, 2016
President of the Forum of Journalists for Transformation (FJT), Piet Rampedi said they would give Motale their support. “He must go to the labour court and we will go and support him,” he said.
On 23 November, members of the FJT together with the Communication Workers Union and other parties marched to the offices of The Citizen where, among other things, they demanded the immediate reinstatement of Motale who was suspended at the time.
Publisher Eureka Zandberg released a statement which read, “Mr Motale was suspended from his duties earlier this month, pending the outcome of an internal disciplinary process. The Citizen contended that the failure of Mr Motale to follow agreed-upon editorial procedures and to uphold his editorial duties led to an irretrievable breakdown in the relationship of trust and confidence between the editor and the publisher of the newspaper.
“The Citizen concurs with the finding against Motale that his ongoing employment at The Citizen has become untenable as a result of this trust breakdown, which was solely due to Motale’s actions and failure to follow procedures.
“This matter was not about the stories that were published in The Citizen. On the contrary, The Citizen upholds the highest standards of editorial freedom and fully endorses the editorial prerogative to determine what is and is not published.”
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