After News24 exposed a suspicious government textbook tender, only to be accused by a rival publication of burying its own parent company’s financial stake in the same deal, News24’s public editor George Claassen considers whether journalism can be simultaneously compromised in its disclosure and righteous in its purpose.

“Uxorem Caesaris tam suspicione quam crimine carere oportet”, translates more or less as “Caesar’s wife should be free from suspicion, as well as from accusation”.

Plutarch’s description of Julius Caesar’s reason for divorcing his second wife, Pompeia, when he was summoned as a witness against her lover, Publius Clodius, came to mind when I read a report by the seasoned Daily Maverick journalist Rebecca Davis about the controversy surrounding the Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) textbook publishing allocation.

Davis accused News24 of a conflict of interest in its series of stories exposing that Lighthouse Publishers “received more approved titles on the Foundation Phase National Catalogue than Oxford University Press or any other established publisher”.

She pointed out that News24 described Lighthouse as a “company with no publishing history” which had won “the lion’s share of a R1.6bn textbook tender”, and that we reported that “Lighthouse’s tax compliance had lapsed, its VAT registration was absent, and the ownership arrangement, ‘which was listed as two-thirds black women-owned, is no longer accurate’”.

Davis referred to News24, quoting an anonymous insider as saying: “There is no way a new entrant has the ability to spend millions on developing material, paying authors, freelance editors, and designers, and submit truckloads of materials to Pretoria.”

“The clear implication of the coverage was that Lighthouse’s success was a result of some form of corruption. No proof of this was provided,” Davis wrote.

After an uproar following News24’s investigation, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube announced “that an investigation would be carried out in the wake of News24’s first exposé”, Davis wrote, but then continued:

“What News24 did not initially tell its readers is that its parent company had a direct financial stake in the same catalogue it was reporting on.”

Via Afrika

She went further by emphasising that “News24 is owned by Media24, which also owns Via Afrika – an educational publisher that submitted to the same catalogue, received nine approved titles, and placed 15th out of 19 publishers in terms of titles won. Via Afrika and News24 share a building”.

When Davis contacted Adriaan Basson, News24’s editor-in-chief, about the possible conflict of interest that should have been declared in the original stories, he responded: “Our reporting so far has focused on an unknown company scooping 27% of the catalogue. Via Afrika and its ownership by Media24 has not been relevant to this. News24 enjoys full editorial independence and is not the spokesperson for or enforcer of its mother company. When we report on Via Afrika, or any other Naspers subsidiary, we always declare our shared ownership.”

As public editor of News24 since 2018, I can testify that it is indeed the standard practice of News24 to always declare its shared ownership by parent company Media24 when it reports on any Naspers subsidiary.

Open to criticism

In this case, though, it was unfortunate that News24 published a shortened list of the publishers who submitted to the catalogue, only showing the 10 most successful publishers on its list and leaving out the rest, also Via Afrika, which shared the fifteenth most successful publisher with regard to the number of titles approved, and not adding an editor’s note declaring the possible conflict of interest.

This left News24 vulnerable to criticism such as this by Davis:

“Yet the impact of Via Afrika’s failure to win more titles appears to be fairly financially significant to Media24.

“When Naspers released its latest annual report in June 2025, the corporate giant explicitly attributed a weak financial performance by Media24 in that year in part to ‘an investment in foundation-phase schoolbook submissions’.

“After the DBE released the new catalogue, Via Afrika sent a letter to its authors dated 5 May 2026, in which it announced that it would be winding down its operations because ‘Via Afrika was unsuccessful in getting books approved on the recently issued Foundation Phase catalogue’.

“The letter continued: ‘This has resulted in the write-off of a significant investment.’

“A rival publisher who submitted to the same catalogue told Daily Maverick, on condition of anonymity, ‘A media house that happens to own one of the participants was the leader in the coverage without indicating clear conflict of interest. I would have thought the other media houses will see through this.’”

What the Press Code says

What does the Press Code say about conflicts of interest? It states in Section 2 that the “media shall: 2.1 not allow commercial, political, personal or other non-professional considerations to influence reporting, and avoid conflicts of interest as well as practices that could lead readers to doubt the media’s independence and professionalism (my emphasis)”.

Furthermore, the Press Code emphasises in Section 1 that the “media shall: 1.1 take care to report news truthfully, accurately and fairly; 1.2 present news in context and in a balanced manner, without any intentional or negligent departure from the facts whether by distortion, exaggeration or misrepresentation, material omissions, or summarisation (my emphasis)”.

It is clear, though, despite what Davis and Daily Maverick allege, that the public interest was indeed very importantly at stake here to ask pertinent questions about an unknown publisher with no publishing record being awarded more than a quarter of the approved allocation for the Foundation Phase National Catalogue.

Furthermore, Davis admitted that “in a country as corruption-jaded as South Africa, any perceived anomaly in a government procurement process will inevitably be interpreted as suspicious”.

This was indeed the case in News24 pursuing the process in the public interest, as the Press Code in its preamble emphasises that the “media exist to serve society. Their freedom provides for independent scrutiny of the forces that shape society, and is essential to realising the promise of democracy. It enables citizens to make informed judgments on the issues of the day, a role whose centrality is recognised in the South African Constitution (my emphasis)”.

The Press Code goes further, stating that the “media’s work is guided at all times by the public interest, understood to describe information of legitimate interest or importance to citizens (my emphasis)”.

Suspicion about possible corruption in the process of awarding an unknown entity such as Lighthouse Publishers such a large portion of the textbook basket, was (and still is) indeed very relevant, as pointed out by Basson in a column in which he asked pertinent questions and raised red flags about the record of the fraud-accused director-general of the basic education department, Mathanzima Mweli.

READ | Adriaan Basson: From fraud-accused to head of the R35bn education budget

In any country where accountability is part of the public discourse, Mweli’s record of being an accused fraudster, would not have been rewarded by any director-generalship as was the case here.

Briefing Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, Minister Gwarube revealed a preliminary internal audit by the department has “revealed concerns that warrant further attention and proper scrutiny”.

Members of the ANC on the committee regard the red flags raised as so serious that they want to refer the process to the Public Protector.

News24’s head of news, Nicki Gules, explained the modus operandi and process of News24’s education reporter, Prega Govender, getting to the nitty-gritty of the successful publishers being awarded.

“The investigation originated after Prega Govender received information from a source in the publishing industry about two weeks before we ran our first story on 28 April. Govender went about fact-checking the source’s information, which came in the form of emails with attached documents, as well as WhatsApp messages. This information was rigorously fact-checked. Govender went to two other publishing companies – these did not include Via Afrika; they are not our source. He also went to industry bodies, including the African Publishers Association. In addition, he also verified the information we had received with sources within the Department of Basic Education (my emphasis)”.

Gules pointed out that while Govender was researching the story, News24’s editor-in-chief, Adriaan Basson, had received information about the textbook contracts that the Department of Basic Education was entering into from a completely different set of sources. “These sources’ information confirmed the information that Govender had received,” said Gules.

She emphasised that News24 had almost 10 individuals and organisations, both within the department and in the textbook publishing industry, who were all saying the same thing.

Gules continued: “Our research was extensive and involved CIPC searches of the company and its directors. We sent teams to Michael Magoya’s registered address in Johannesburg and to Lighthouse Publishers’ registered business address in Simon’s Town.

“We contacted all the directors, including the deregistered ones, and Georgia Groome’s mother, Penelope, who owns the Simon’s Town house.

“We went to Lighthouse Publishers for comment on the afternoon of Thursday, 23 April, and gave them until late on Monday, 27 April to respond.

“Before we published, we sent the story to our internal ombud George Claassen for approval.”

(I was approached to make sure the audi alteram partem principle – right of reply – was sufficiently applied in advance of publication, as Section 1.8 of the Press Code requires. I did not know about Via Afrika’s bid as it was not included in News24’s list of the 10 most successful bidders).

“At no point did it even occur to any of us that Via Afrika had tendered for the catalogue. This is because we had no contact with them,” said Gules.

Neither Govender nor his news editor Gules work in Cape Town. They work from the Johannesburg office. “We do not know the people at Via Afrika, nor did it occur to us to call them,” she stated.

She emphasised that News24 did not publish the full list of publishers because there were 19 of them.

“We restricted our list to a more easily digestible top 10. There was no intended malice or obfuscation. The top 10 represents 92% of the entire catalogue (5 875 titles out of a total of 6 385) and Via Afrika received nine titles in total.

“At the time, with the knowledge we had, this seemed entirely appropriate. We wanted to keep things simple and digestible. Via Afrika wasn’t the story, nor were any of the other publishers the story. Our focus was on the ‘winner’, the extraordinary fact that a completely unknown entity managed to scoop 27% of the catalogue. The first time we wrote about Via Afrika – after they sent out a statement about winding down the business – we fully declared shared ownership.”

‘This was not someone’s bidding‘

Gules pointed out that News24 was not “fed” the story, “which implies that we were doing someone’s bidding. We investigated the story after a tip-off in a manner that we believe was comprehensive, thorough and in the public interest. Yes, we knew that the publishers were aggrieved. They had spent millions of rands developing sample copies of textbooks, some up to R40 million, and now they face massive retrenchments. The first we learnt of Via Afrika’s involvement was the announcement of its closure by Media24 CEO Raj Lalbahadur”.

She continued: “Also, the line held by the Lighthouse owners in their responses was highly questionable to us, but we ran their responses in full as we are required to do by the Press Code.

READ | Gwarube defends procurement probe after being accused of meddling in department

“They told us they had no premises and warehousing and were all working online – one owner from China, where he is a student! They also said they were relying on friends and family to fund this bid of theirs, which had cost other publishers as much as R40 million. This seemed unbelievable to us. This investment they stood to lose completely if their work was not chosen by the evaluators and screeners.

“Michael Mugoya, the 27-year-old 51% owner, has zero education publishing experience and lives in China. Georgia Groome, who owns 49%, said she did have experience in the field of education, and that her mother was basically the intellectual might behind the operation. This certainly looked questionable to us, coupled with the fact that Mugoya was only appointed as a director in March 2026.

“This coupled with the fact that they submitted 1 734 titles of which 1 707 (a staggering 98.4%) were chosen for the catalogue, certainly made this a massive public interest issue. These appeared to be very young people who stood to make hundreds of millions of rands from the public after scoring 98.4% of their submissions for the catalogue approvals – and they did not even have a website.”

“At no point did they tell us they were doing this because the existing textbooks were bad, or because they were saving SA’s education system, like they told the Daily Maverick. Neither did they offer for us to speak to their authors. They responded to questions and we included their responses in full.

“We have included the declaration that Media24 owns both News24 and Via Afrika in every story we mentioned Via Afrika in. We are not Media24 or Via Afrika’s henchmen and were not used to perform a hatchet job on anybody or any company. This is absolutely not what happened,” Gules concluded.

An issue of public interest

Unfortunately, Daily Maverick did not take the public interest into consideration when News24 opened up the can of worms about the procurement process and the red flags it raised.

Although News24 should have been more vigilant in identifying Via Afrika as a subsidiary who was part of the bidding process and should have declared its interest as both forming a part of Media24, Daily Maverick’s article was nothing less than a whitewash of Lighthouse Publishing, ignoring two vital aspects of trustworthy investigative reporting: was the reporting in the public interest, and was it balanced and fair towards a subject of critical reporting, applying the audi alteram partem principle in advance of publication, as the Press Code requires?

I believe News24 has passed the public interest test, as well as the right of reply requirement, fulfilling its role as watchdog in the interest of the public, warning by barking because, as a former editor of The New York Times, AM Rosenthal, observed, “[S]ilence is a lie. Silence has a loud voice. It shouts, nothing important is happening, don’t worry. So when something important is going on, silence is a lie”.

- George Claassen is News24’s public editor and a board member of the international Organization of News Ombuds and Standards Editors.

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