[imagesource: Adrian de Kock]

You know that sense of dread you get when you wake up after a big night, and you’ve lost your phone, your wallet, and your dignity?

Now imagine you wrote a long-winded column berating numerous parties who wronged you, which was published last week on The Daily Maverick, only to have to issue a moerse retraction when your story falls apart and it turns out you were just hammered.

Investigative journalist Jacques Pauw has done a great deal of sleuthing and exposing in his time (he wrote The President’s Keepers, for example), but he has done his reputation the world of damage with his account of what happened at the V&A Waterfront on February 6.

Titled ‘I was stunned and dazed when pounced on by police, arrested, jailed and charged with theft’ (the column is no longer live), Pauw detailed how he was arrested when trying to draw money to pay a restaurant bill, after his bank card hadn’t worked.

Pauw also accused the officers who arrested him of stealing R1 000 in cash that he had on him, cast aspersions on the motive of the waiter who served him, and was critical of the restaurant’s manager.

He appeared in court on Monday, February 8, after being detained overnight and released the following morning with a warning.

As the dust settled, and certain parts of his story didn’t seem to add up, Pauw issued a statement and apology via Twitter, and on The Daily Maverick.

Here’s some of that statement:

Upon reflection and additional evidence provided to me, I have realised that there are errors in the column. I now wish to set the record straight.

I had too much to drink in the restaurant and my memory was blurred. The ordeal of the experience of the arrest and having to spend the night in jail compounded my emotional state.

I had a meeting with the restaurant owner and a conversation with a V&A executive this Monday. They showed and explained certain facts to me. I misbehaved and I wish to apologize for my behaviour.

The column in the Daily Maverick created the impression that either the restaurant management, or the waiter that served me, or the V&A Waterfront made a call to the police to have me arrested. It turns out this did not happen. Neither the restaurant nor the Waterfront made any such calls and played no role in my arrest.

The three policemen who arrested me were already at, or near, the venue after attending to an unrelated incident.

They enquired what was going on. In the heat of the moment, I lost my cool and I acted in an impolite manner. My own action played a role in getting me arrested and detained.

Well, that is quite different from the story he was telling, with great conviction and gusto, in that original column.

One might say he took us all for a Pauws.

If your memory is blurry after a few too many (we’ve all been there), you know it’s blurry, and you don’t write an account as though you recall everything with great clarity.

There was only one brief mention of having had a few drinks at the restaurant in the column, and it was almost dismissive, stressing that there is nothing illegal about that.

Pauw also clarified that the officers who arrested him had not stolen the R1 000 in cash, which he had covered, at length, in his column.

Whilst there was a sizeable backlash against the V&A Waterfront on social media (one popular restaurant review group was filled with breathless accounts of boycotts and naming and shaming), Pauw now says that “neither the restaurant nor the V&A Waterfront played any role in my arrest and detention”:

I feel embarrassed about my conduct. In this era of fake news, propaganda and lack of accountability, I must publicly accept responsibility for my own actions and apologise for them. It is the right thing to do.

I also apologise to Daily Maverick readers and its editor for the wrong account of events in the opinion piece.

The reputational damage done here is extensive.

Pauw first made his name exposing the likes of Vlakplaas, Eugene De Kock, and many other apartheid atrocities, and shot to prominence again with The President’s Keepers.

To go and taint all of that with a petty, vindictive, and ultimately false account of your arrest just gives those defending Jacob Zuma et al an easy way out, as they can now say Pauw has failed to meet basic journalistic standards.

The same can be said for The Daily Maverick, which has exposed countless scandals (state capture, the looting of VBS Bank, the thus-far failed nuclear deal, and so on) across the highest levels of government.

Future reporting exposing high-profile figures, or examining corruption, for example, will be met with a barrage of ‘but Jacques Pauw’ across social media.

It also gives all of the ‘mainstream media cannot be trusted’ types an easy out to dismiss valuable reporting on subjects like COVID-19, a vaccine rollout, and so forth.

The Daily Maverick editorial team has admitted it dropped the ball (you can see the explanation of how that happened at the top of Pauw’s statement), and taken the original column down, citing “factual inaccuracies”, but again, the damage is done.

All of that, for an emotional, angry, and unfounded grievance.

As one local comedian said…

Winner of the longest drunk text ever sent: Jacques Pauw.

— Rory Petzer (@RoryPetzer) February 16, 2021

[source:dailymaverick]