KZN journalists ditch ANC briefing for EFF party

About 20 journalists and photographers from various media houses walked out of a media briefing organised by the ANC eThekwini region on Friday after its leadership arrived an hour late.

The party had called the journalists to arrive at the briefing by 11 am. The briefing was to deal with “organisational issues”.

TimesLive reports that the event did not start on time and ANC regional spokesperson Zinhle Cele told journalists there was “a little bit of delay”.

Reporters started getting frustrated an hour later as most of them were also covering the EFF’s fourth birthday celebrations.

The delay meant they might miss the strict accreditation deadlines for Saturday’s party, TimesLive reported.

Cele urged them to stay, but they all walked out.

She was quoted by TimesLive as saying: “It’s not us who are late but the people we are waiting for are the ones who are late.”

Noseweek Magazine assistant editor Jonathan Erasmus said the ANC in the province had a reputation for being late.

“We sometimes wait for several hours beyond the scheduled time for press briefings to begin.

“It was great to see such unity among journalists across the various news platforms in print, radio, digital and television.  This is not the first time. In 2016 journalists walked out of a KZN ANCYL briefing that was running well over an hour late.

“We respect the right of all political parties to host press briefings. We trust that they will also respect our need to cover multiple stories in one day,” he said.