Come on then, Ace. Sue – what can you lose?

The voice on the other end of the line was friendly but perfectly plain: “You write a word of this and he’ll sue you back to the Stone Age.”

The PR person had passed on my list of questions related to dodgy tender dealings in one of the “homelands” to his principal, a billionaire businessman who was overseas on business and who “blew a gasket” when he saw my queries.

As I put down the phone, I realised: it ends here. My source had fled in fear for his life to Europe and wasn’t prepared to swear to a legal affidavit, never mind return to South Africa to testify. So, the documents he had given me, fascinating as they were, meant nothing.

The company wasn’t prepared to commit huge financial resources to defend a case it might lose. Nor was I prepared to go down.

My family was young, money was tight and the businessman had vindictively promised to “take you down as well…”

Many real stories of malfeasance have never seen the light of day, not only here in South Africa, but around the world, because the rich and powerful have been able to bring more powerful guns to bear than mere journalists. On the other hand, the poor can be libelled and slandered by the media almost without challenge because they can’t afford to go to court.

In my more than 35 years in this business, I have seen both examples, and truth is usually the first victim. When the powerful start threatening, the best defence is accuracy, and I have won a few of those battles, too.

Like the time we ran a story about an Aids NGO handing out condoms, along with a message. The problem was that the condoms were stapled to the pamphlet. And the NGO threatened to sue when we ran a picture of the now leaky condoms on our front page.

I was sitting in the office of the legendary media law man Peter Reynolds when he spoke on the phone to the attorney who had served papers on us.

“Don’t embarrass yourself, David,” said Reynolds. Not long afterwards, the case was withdrawn. On another occasion, a Free State farmer, who was paying his workers R4 a day, tried to interdict us from printing the story and his lawyers took out an urgent application in the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein, set for midday, less than an hour ahead.

Reynolds briefed associates in Bloem who opposed the interdict and threatened to sue the farmer for our damages should the edition not hit the streets the next day.

The farmer backed down and dropped the case entirely when one of my reporters proved the farmer had forced his workers to sign affidavits denying our story or they would not be paid.

The message from Reynolds was simple: pack your tent and go or we bring charges of attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

So I have been watching with interest the promises by Ace Magashule to sue the author of a new book which accuses him of corruption.

So far, a week after the story broke, no papers have been served. Here’s a piece of advice for you, Ace, from Abraham Lincoln.

“Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.”

So, sue the “fake news” purveyor back to the Stone Age … What have you got to lose?

Brendan Seery.

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