Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: A Comparison of the Construction of Authority and Responsibility in Two South African Cholera Epidemics

Abstract

This paper examines cholera-related coverage in two Eastern Cape daily newspapers, the Daily Dispatch and the Eastern Province Herald, to demonstrate how changes in the coverage of two cholera outbreaks between 1980 and 2003 exemplify the political transition in South Africa, reflect the changing political ideologies at work in and on the media. Coverage of the 1980–1983 eastern South African epidemic was compared to coverage of the 2000–2003 Eastern Cape outbreak. The aim was to determine who was most quoted in the coverage and what implications this had for the image of each epidemic as constructed by the newspapers. The analysis revealed that during the 1980s, both newspapers portrayed government-employed medical professionals as the dominant authorities on the epidemic, mostly excluding alternative viewpoints. Coverage was uncritical of the National Party-led government. Conversely, in post-apartheid coverage, a range of voices – governmental and civilian – were integrated into articles. Coverage was critical of the ANC-led government, as well as commenting negatively on the post-1994 public healthcare system. The shift from the newspapers' adherence to the official government-derived version of events to their incorporation of a range of viewpoints mirrors the ideological shift from apartheid-era authoritarianism to the more democratic climate post-apartheid.

Keywords:

• cholera
• South Africa
• newspaper coverage
• apartheid
• post-apartheid

Notes

¹A. Karlen, Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 131.

²R.J. Evans, ‘Epidemics and Revolutions: Cholera in Nineteenth-Century Europe’, in T. Ranger and P. Slack, eds, Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992), 153.

³Karlen, Man and Microbes, 132.

⁴Karlen, Man and Microbes, 132.

⁵C.L .Briggs, ‘Modernity, Cultural Reasoning, and the Institutionalisation of Social Inequality: Racialising Death in a Venezuelan Cholera Epidemic’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 43, 4 (2001), 666.

⁶C.L .Briggs, ‘Modernity, Cultural Reasoning, and the Institutionalisation of Social Inequality: Racialising Death in a Venezuelan Cholera Epidemic’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 43, 4 (2001), 666.

⁷Karlen, Man and Microbes, 132.

⁸Karlen, Man and Microbes, 133.

⁹Evans, ‘Epidemics and Revolutions’, 155.

¹⁰Department of Health, Welfare and Pensions [DHWP], ‘Cholera in the Transvaal Lowveld: A Preliminary Report’, Epidemiological Comments, 7, 12 (1980), 1.

¹¹DHWP, ‘Cholera in the Transvaal Lowveld: A Preliminary Report’, Epidemiological Comments, 7, 12 (1980), 1.

¹²DHWP, ‘Further Notes on the 1980 Outbreak of Cholera in South Africa’, Epidemiological Comments, (November 1980), 2.

¹³DHWP, ‘Analysis of Cholera Data’, Epidemiological Comments, 8, 6 (1981), 2.

¹⁴DHWP, ‘Up-Date: Cholera’, Epidemiological Comments, 8, 9 (1981), 2.

¹⁵DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 8, 10 (1981), 1.

¹⁶DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 8, 12 (1981), 10.

¹⁷DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 9, 1 (1982), 2.

¹⁸DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 9, 1, (1982), 17.

¹⁹DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 9, 2 (1982), 2.

²⁰DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 9, 2 (1982), 17.

²¹‘Man Dies of Cholera’, Eastern Province Herald, 19 February 1982, 2; ‘Seven Cholera Cases Proved’, Daily Dispatch, 17 February 1982, 1.

²²DHWP, ‘Cholera Up-date’, Epidemiological Comments, 9, 7 (1982), 2.

²³‘Cholera Strikes in Eastern Cape’, Eastern Province Herald, 1 May 2001, 3.

²⁴‘Mystery Disease in Transkei Kills Ten’, Eastern Province Herald, 21 January 2002, 1.

²⁵M. Zuzile and P. Mdolomba, ‘Umtata Sewage Cause of Cholera Says Mamase’, Daily Dispatch, 7 February 2002, 3.

²⁶S. Mzimba, ‘Youth Dies in Transkei's Cholera Outbreak’, Daily Dispatch, 22 March 2002, 2.

²⁷M. Dyonana, ‘OR Tambo Plans to Fight Disease’, Daily Dispatch, 11 October 2002, 5; M. Dyonana, ‘New Cholera Outbreak in Transkei Claims Seven Lives’, Eastern Province Herald, 6 January 2003, 2; Department of Health, ‘Cholera in South Africa as on 23.01.2003’, available from www.doh.gov.za/issues/cholera/updates03/0124.html (accessed on 1 October 2009); ‘Medical Service on Cholera Alert’, Daily Dispatch, 17 February 2003, 1; N. Kumbaca, ‘Another Cholera Outbreak’, Daily Dispatch, 31 March 2003, 1.

²⁸ Eastern Province Herald online, ‘About Us’, available from http://www.theherald.co.za/aboutus/default.aspx (accessed 4 November 2009).

²⁹K. Tomaselli and R. Tomaselli, ‘The Political Economy of the South African Press’ in K. Tomaselli, R. Tomaselli and J.Muller, eds, Narrating the Crisis: Hegemony and the South African Press (Johannesburg: Richard Lyon, 1987), 39–117, 71.

³⁰G. Williams, The Daily Dispatch: 125 Years Developing the News (East London: Daily Dispatch, 1997), 11.

³¹Tomaselli and Tomaselli, ‘Political Economy’, 72.

³²Tomaselli and Tomaselli, ‘Political Economy’, 72.

³³‘Which Public? What Interest? The South African Media and Its Role During the First Ten Years of Democracy’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 36–51, 37.

³⁴‘Which Public? What Interest? The South African Media and Its Role During the First Ten Years of Democracy’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 36–51, 37.

³⁵‘Which Public? What Interest? The South African Media and Its Role During the First Ten Years of Democracy’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 36–51, 37.

³⁶‘Which Public? What Interest? The South African Media and Its Role During the First Ten Years of Democracy’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 36–51, 43.

³⁷‘Which Public? What Interest? The South African Media and Its Role During the First Ten Years of Democracy’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 36–51, 45.

³⁸A. Johnston, ‘The African National Congress, the Print Media, and the Development of Mediated Politics in South Africa’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 29.

³⁹A. Johnston, ‘The African National Congress, the Print Media, and the Development of Mediated Politics in South Africa’, Critical Arts, 19, 1&2 (2005), 29. Johnston, ‘Mediated Politics in South Africa’, 29.

⁴⁰A. Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 190.

⁴¹A. Bell, The Language of News Media (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 192.

⁴²Note that this group therefore excludes medical professionals employed in the private sectors of South Africa or ‘homelands’, as well as those employed by non-governmental organisations. It includes doctors, nurses and medical technicians employed at public hospitals in South Africa and in ‘homelands’, epidemiologists employed by government-linked research bodies, and spokespeople for the various provincial and regional subdivisions and subsidiaries of the ‘homeland’ and South African departments of health.

⁴³Bell, News Media, 190. See also A. Bell, ‘Hot News – Media, Reporting and Public Understanding of the Climate-Change Issue in New Zealand: A Study in the (Mis)Communication of Science’, Project Report to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Ministry for the Environment (Wellington: Department of Linguistics, Victoria University, 1989), and Leon V Sigal, ‘Who? Sources Make the News’, in R.K. Manoff and M. Schudson, (eds.) Reading the News: A Pantheon Guide to Popular Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), 9–37.

⁴⁴‘Cholera Case in Bophututswana’, Daily Dispatch, 25 November 1980, 1.

⁴⁵‘Anti-Cholera Measures Underway on Border’, Daily Dispatch, 15 January 1981, 7.

⁴⁶‘Anti-Cholera Measures Underway on Border’, Daily Dispatch, 15 January 1981, 7.

⁴⁷‘Water Being Checked’, Daily Dispatch, 20 November 1980, 3; ‘Cholera Case in Bophuthatswana’ Daily Dispatch, 25 November 1980, 1.

⁴⁸‘Anti-Cholera Measures Underway on Border’, Daily Dispatch, 15 January 1981, 7.

⁴⁹‘Anti-Cholera Alert’, Eastern Province Herald, 1 December 2000, 5.

⁵⁰Bell, News Media, 190. This is important in terms of correlation between the ‘eliteness’ of a news source and the credibility of the information they impart. The Daily Dispatch, although somewhat challenging this by including a number of sources not usually considered ‘elite’, nevertheless mostly adheres to it.

⁵¹This may also be partly the result of changing government communication strategies, where a group of professional ‘spokespeople’ and ‘media liaisons’ place medical professionals at a further remove from media audiences.

⁵²M. Zuzile and P. Mdolomba, ‘Umtata Sewage Cause of Cholera Says Mamase’, Daily Dispatch, 7 February 2002, 3.

⁵³Nor is her presence explained by the Eastern Cape's role as a major labour reserve for the mining industry, as Mining is not the same portfolio as Mineral Affairs and Energy.

⁵⁴Bell, News Media, 193.

⁵⁵Bell, News Media, 194.

⁵⁶This is especially likely in view of the press media's assumption of a ‘watchdog’ role, as put forward by Wassermann and De Beer in ‘Which Public? Whose Interest?’

⁵⁷M. Maqhina, ‘Cholera Committee Set Up’, Daily Dispatch, 23 January 2002, 1.

⁵⁸For example, M. Dyonana, ‘Goqwana Assesses Progress on Cholera’, Daily Dispatch, 14 January 2003, 2; ‘“No Need to Panic” Over Cholera’, Daily Dispatch, 16 January 2003, 3; and particularly M. Dyonana, ‘Health Department Winning Cholera War’, Daily Dispatch, 18 January 2003, 2.