Sometimes it seems a bit too obvious that the media may be protecting Cyril

One is never too old or ugly to be surprised in this job, it seems. This morning, I did my usual perusal of the daily papers and noticed a little story tucked away on page 6 of The Sowetan about how Cyril Ramaphosa’s son had caused a bit of a “social media stir” by “taking a jibe” at Duduzane Zuma.

Hmm, now that looks interesting, I thought.

When I saw that the president’s son Tumelo had called Duduzane a “fool” in an Instagram video he filmed while in Dubai, it didn’t take me long to find a recording of the clip on Twitter, even though Tumelo himself had hastily deleted it.

Before that happened, I’d like to imagine there was a moment when Ramaphosa Junior’s phone rang with ‘Dad’ on the screen, followed by an immense chewing out.

But Mzansi’s folk are woke, neh, and it’s not quite as easy to clean up your tracks as just tapping the delete button.

I was then completely amazed when it turned out that, in addition to calling Duduzane a “fool”, Tumelo Ramaphosa had also called Duduzane and other unnamed associates in Dubai “fucking monkeys”. Sowetan did reference the word ‘monkey’ in passing, but didn’t draw attention to it. They left out the swear word.

WATCH: Cyril’s son calls Zuma’s son a fool and a ‘f**king monkey’

Now that is really interesting, I thought.

I then promptly kicked myself for the fact that our website and daily paper had completely missed this story yesterday, and I was imagining that, when I googled this thing, I’d encounter in the region of about 3 million articles about it, because that’s just how the internet is, yo. It loves to slurp up juicy “beefs” and gossip.

But there was nothing.

All I saw was a PressReader entry pointing me to the very same printed Sowetan article that was lying on my desk.

Now why is that, I wondered.

My own excuse for not having had the story online was that I didn’t know about it, and neither did anyone in our entire newsroom.

I checked.

But Sowetan clearly knew enough about it to even try to get comment from President Cyril Ramaphosa himself, which they did.

But then, rather mysteriously, they seemed to sanitise it, choosing only to draw attention to the fact that Tumelo Ramaphosa had said Duduzane Zuma was a “fool”.

I have no idea what happens in other newsrooms (half the time I don’t even know what’s going on in my own), so I can’t really speculate on why any other newspaper may choose to tell any particular story in any particular way.

However, even I happen to be aware that the privately owned media industry has long stood accused of favouring Cyril Ramaphosa as The Chosen One. For example, when all those naughty emails of Ramaphosa’s (alleged) affairs were published by The Sunday Independent last year you’d have to be particularly blind not to have noticed that very few other titles showed any interest whatsoever, despite Ramaphosa’s panicked attempt to shut down the embarrassing article by going to court (which he fortunately lost).

You might be forgiven for having concluded that our press didn’t want to jeopardise Ramaphosa’s chances of succeeding Jacob Zuma.

The editor who published that story has since left the industry by the way (some might say he was given a bit of a push).

Nevertheless, I’m sure if you were to ask our country’s editors if they are in any way biased towards Ramaphosa, they would froth at the mouth that you feel there’s even a need to pose such a question. We as the media love to tell ourselves how “objective” we are and how fair we act in our reporting.

So, of course, I’m not casting aspersions.

I’m merely saying that when there’s already quite a well-documented perception among many black people in this country that Ramaphosa is the darling of the white media, along with being the biggest buddy of white business, perhaps we need to be a little more careful when it comes to making it too obvious that we may be working to regularly present him in the most favourable light possible.

By deflecting from the “fucking monkeys” part of Tumelo Ramaphosa’s quote, Sowetan in effect sanitised their story. Of course, Sowetan must also be credited with including a quote from Black First Land First leader Andile Mngxi​tama. Mngxitama – a very big Zuma supporter – has probably been the most outspoken critic of Tiso Blackstar, the company that owns The Sowetan and several other titles, so hats off to them for consulting him and quoting him.

He told them Tumelo Ramaphosa’s words were, to his mind, a reflection of “con​ver​sa​tions hap​pening at the Ramaphosa house​hold”.

He is quoted saying: “This is what hap​pens at the ca​sual din​ner ta​ble con​ver​sa​tions; laugh​ing at political op​po​nents and re​in​forc​ing racist stereotypes … it’s like fa​ther, like son.”

Mngxitama complained that the re​sponse to Tumelo had, however, been “luke​warm, even on so​cial me​dia”. He alleged the media hadn’t done nearly enough to shine a spotlight on Tumelo’s words. “If this was said by Ja​cob Zuma’s son, there would have been calls al​ready that he should not even be al​lowed to re​turn to South Africa,” he ​said.

And the thing is, Mngxitama is right.

You might say no one is interested in such a story, but I can show you the live audience figures for our article (which I very quickly published) that tend to suggest (rather strongly) otherwise. You might also allege the only reason Mngxitama makes an appearance is to create a false sense of balance.

Furthermore, Tumelo Ramaphosa can be seen in the video bragging about his fancy hotel room and all the money he’s making.

But when the Mugabe kids showed off their swag last year, they were torn apart by the South African press for ostentatiously displaying their wealth while hailing from a very poor country. But it’s hard to escape the fact that there are even more poor people in South Africa (because there are simply more people, and most of those people are poor).

You could argue that Ramaphosa is a self-made man and didn’t “steal” from the people, as we’re told the Mugabes did, and so his son being a braggart should be neither here nor there.

Maybe.

But not everyone feels that way, and if you’re searching for the views of those who don’t like President Ramaphosa, you won’t have too look too far. It’s not hard to discover many, even in the ANC, who feel Ramaphosa only became a billionaire because he sided with (and provided political cover for) some of the richest white capitalist captains of our industries who (they allege) have been plundering the wealth of this nation for generations.

So I realise that when a young black man calls another young black man a monkey, that, strictly speaking, isn’t racism – unlike when any white person calls any black person a monkey.

However, when your father has been accused of having more of the mind-set of a white person than a black person, maybe you shouldn’t go around calling other black people monkeys – even if you think that person might be fair game, a fugitive from justice and unpopular in the public’s mind.

But hey, I’m just wondering out loud.

Citizen digital editor Charles Cilliers