They don’t try to bribe me

The look on the man’s pink, drink-sodden face was one of pure hatred.

“Come here!” he shouted across the corridor in the Bulawayo magistrate’s court building. I was only 21 and hadn’t been a court reporter very long, but having just got out of the army, I was used to following orders. I was a bit hesitant as I went over.

Not five minutes earlier, I had recorded the magistrate handing down a hefty fine to the man for drunken driving.

He was a well-known businessperson in the city and I had been given a whispered tip-off from one of the prosecutors.

When the man’s legal team saw me, they tried to get me ejected and applied to the magistrate to have the case heard in camera.

The magistrate, who had just been appointed to the bench, was black.

His name was Meshack Cheda and I had heard he had once been a court interpreter.

He turned down the application and I sat through the case, one of about five a day that the newsdesk expected me to cover.

As I walked over to the now-convicted man, who was in the process of paying his fine, he pulled out $200 and said: “That’s what you’ll get for forgetting this ever happened…”

Naive as I was, it took quite a time for it to sink in.

I was being offered a bribe.

I blustered something about how I had to write up all the cases I covered … and then walked away, leaving him fuming.

He said something about “your shitty little rag …”

As I walked back to the office, my onboard calculator did the sums: I had just been offered more than my monthly salary.

I didn’t even own a car back then; I used to get to work from my dingy flat on a bicycle.

But I remember the emotion was one of amazement, not regret.

When I told my news editor, a crusty Scotsman, what had happened, he leapt out of his chair, grabbed me by the elbow and frogmarched me to the office of the editor, Sandy Robertson.

Sandy listened to my tale and the insult about The Chronicle and said: “Really? Put in your story that he tried to bribe you. And we’ll put this on page one…”

So, the man’s attempt to keep his name out of the newspaper backfired spectacularly.

And that is the only time someone has tried to bribe me as a journalist.

Looking back, I wonder what I was doing wrong – but then I realised the people I was dealing with in my later investigative days preferred threats to bribes.

I have also never had a bribe solicited from me, despite being stopped on numerous occasions at road blocks.

Once, I was caught talking on my cellphone while driving and pulled over.

The conversation between the traffic cop and I meandered a bit, now I come to think of it. “I am going to spoil your weekend. The fine is R500,” he said.

My response: “If you do the crime, you do the time.”

He stared at me.

I don’t think I have an honest face but I do have a grumpy one, and I reckon he knew I could be a troublemaker if I wanted to.

“Okay, I will let you go. But you won’t do it again, will you?”

Citizen acting deputy editor Brendan Seery.