{"id":808,"date":"2026-04-29T17:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/?p=808"},"modified":"2026-04-29T17:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:25:15","slug":"lottery-scandal-now-engulfs-sa-media-credibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/?p=808","title":{"rendered":"Lottery scandal now engulfs SA media credibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"textFreeArticle\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1670987?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>The ongoing and lengthy lottery corruption scandal has now reached deep into the heart of South African journalism.<\/p>\n<p>You might have read that Sunday Times editor and the South African National Editors\u2019 Forum (Sanef) chair, Makhudu Sefara, has been placed on special leave after the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) linked his company to payments from a lottery funded media project. He has denied wrongdoing and says a training event did take place.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ApplePlainTextBody\" dir=\"auto\">Hawks, SAPS snub parliament hearing on lottery corruption<\/div>\n<div class=\"ApplePlainTextBody\" dir=\"auto\">Former lottery chair challenges Ramaphosa\u2019s investigation<\/div>\n<div class=\"ApplePlainTextBody\" dir=\"auto\">Ramaphosa extends SIU probe into lottery corruption<\/div>\n<p>But GroundUp and its founder, Nathan Geffen in particular, had, as I understand, been raising concerns for years about the relationship between sections of the media, the National Lotteries Commission and broad journalistic credibility.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s my question, what happens when the watchdogs themselves become part of the story? Nathan, a very warm welcome, and when did you first begin to worry about the relationship between the commission and parts of the media?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NATHAN GEFFEN: <\/strong>Hi, Jeremy. Yeah, it goes back quite a while, I think as far back as 2019.<\/p>\n<p>We published an article in which we raised concerns about the Sunday World and the way it was reporting on the National Lotteries Commission. At the time, Makhudu Sefara was the editor. This continued over a number of years, there were a number of concerns that we raised.<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In 2023, I raised the issue with Sanef about Makhudu\u2019s involvement with the National Lotteries Commission \u2013 or at least with the Sunday World \u2013 at a time that the Sunday World was getting a disproportionate amount of advertising from the National Lotteries Commission, running puff pieces about the National Lotteries Commission when it was at its most corrupt, and at the same time attacking our reporter, Raymond Joseph, who was covering the story.<\/p>\n<p>So I raised concerns about this, and I said, there needs to be some kind of inquiry into what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This came not long after Sanef had spent quite a large amount of money on an inquiry into media ethics. To my mind, if you\u2019re going to talk a big game about media ethics, then you need to actually make sure that your house is clean.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Makhudu Sefara was at this time on the Sanef management committee, and I raised a couple of times, over several months, that we needed to look into this.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Every effort I made was spurned by the people who were in charge of Sanef at the time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Anton Harber, veteran journalist who started the Weekly Mail in the 1980s, wrote a letter to Sanef pleading with them to have an inquiry into the way National Lotteries Commission advertising was affecting the media, and they refused.<\/p>\n<p>After that happened, there was quite an argumentative meeting at Sanef, and after that, I left Sanef. Then about a year later, Makhudu was elected chair of Sanef. So not only were our concerns rebuffed, but Makhudu was rewarded despite the questions hanging over his head.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Now, I need to emphasise, I don\u2019t know if Makhudu is guilty of anything. There are questions that have been raised.<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He seems to be one of these unfortunate people who always ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he\u2019s always got an explanation for what happened. Maybe his explanations will hold water. Let\u2019s see. What we asked for was an inquiry and that was rebuffed continuously.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>Sefara says he did nothing wrong and that a journalists\u2019 training workshop did take place. What do you think in that respect then, Nathan, still needs to be answered?<\/p>\n<p><strong>NATHAN GEFFEN: <\/strong>I need to tell you that the first I heard of the SIU investigation into this R550 000 that was given to Makhudu Sefara\u2019s company in order to hold this workshop, the first I heard of it was yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not something we\u2019ve ever looked into directly, so I can\u2019t comment on the specifics of that.<\/p>\n<p>What I do know is that at the time that he was the editor of the Sunday World, around about that period, they started getting a disproportionate amount of advertising revenue from the National Lotteries Commission.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<br \/>National Lottery whistleblowers denied financial compensation<br \/>Pityana resigns as board chair of National Lotteries Commission<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t make sense in terms of their readership numbers and they were running these puff pieces about the National Lotteries Commission. That was the concern I raised. This is new information that came out yesterday, and we\u2019ll have to wait and see what the SIU finds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>How damaging, in your opinion, is this for public trust? When a senior editor or a media body like Sanef is drawn into corruption related allegations?<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT:<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>NATHAN GEFFEN: <\/strong>Well, we\u2019re living in a time when there\u2019s already a lack of trust and lack of confidence by many people in the media or in the so-called mainstream media. I think a lot of that mistrust and lack of confidence is misplaced. But this doesn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This fuels the conspiracy theories. It fuels the mistrust about big news publications, and it certainly isn\u2019t good for Sanef.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So this is this is bad for our industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>It is bad for the industry. It does raise the important question about whether South African journalism has enough internal accountability when its own leaders are implicated. Because, as you said to me at the start of this conversation, you raised this issue years ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>NATHAN GEFFEN: <\/strong>Indeed. I think we have to be realistic, journalists are not priests and they\u2019re not elected political leaders. I don\u2019t think we need to hold them to puritanical standards of morality.<\/p>\n<p>Read:<\/p>\n<div class=\"ApplePlainTextBody\" dir=\"auto\">The battle for SA journalism<\/div>\n<div class=\"ApplePlainTextBody\" dir=\"auto\">Media freedom in SA is cause for optimism and pride<\/div>\n<p>But when there are concerns that money is affecting the way a news publication is reporting on a corrupt institution, that becomes an issue of immense public importance. That\u2019s where trust in the media can be eroded if something has gone wrong there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JEREMY MAGGS: <\/strong>I\u2019m going to leave it there. Nathan Geffen, thank you very much indeed. He is the founder of the news website GroundUp.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Lottery #scandal #engulfs #media #credibility<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. 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