Perhaps somebody should just come out and say it – Barry Bateman is being used as a massive distraction, but we will get to that later.

Bateman, a senior journalist for Eyewitness News (EWN), has landed himself in hot water after he was caught on camera calling Julius Malema a “f*cking p*es”.

Malema had been addressing the media after a meeting with the Hawks, related to that time Juju fired off a weapon at an EFF rally in East London last year.

Oh, and then there was that other thing, too – News24 below:

Malema is also facing charges of aggravated assault in a separate matter after footage was released of him and party spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi allegedly in an altercation with a police officer at the funeral of struggle stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Reacting to the charges, Malema said he would never apologise to the white man who refused him entry to the grave site of Madikizela-Mandela.

Malema was responding to Bateman’s question about whether he had assaulted the police officer, and after he walked away, Bateman could be seen letting rip.

Here’s the video:

If that video doesn’t work, you can see it here.

EWN issued an immediate apology and pulled Bateman off air, but the EFF wasn’t having it:

“We have long warned that journalists are responsible for the toxic environment that EFF has to operate in, within the media generally. One must simple imagine what would have happened had the EFF responded to Bateman on the scene of his naked provocation. It is obvious that many would blame the EFF for being intolerant of the media and suppressing media freedom,” said EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in the statement.

Funny how they’re suddenly so touched on their studio, when their own party members assault journalists and security forces. It’s almost as though they’re trying to distract from something else.

Oh, yes, like the fact that Malema had been using the money of some of South Africa’s poorest citizens as his personal piggy bank, looting VBS Bank’s coffers to live the high life.

If you prefer to see his criminality in video form, here you go:

Yup, Pauli van Wyk and the Daily Maverick have all the receipts, and we were waiting for the response from the EFF ‘misinformation brigade’.

It didn’t take long, and it was woeful.

Here’s the image being spread by EFF supporters, in tweets like this:

So Pauli spends the best part of a year painstakingly following the money, and some idiot types out a few numbers on a Word document as a response?

It would be comical if so many idiots weren’t gobbling it up as some sort of proof that the media is persecuting poor Juju.

Here’s another variation of the above:

Stratcom, White Monopoly Capital, the SARS Rogue Unit, bla bla bla. The doos can’t even spell her name correctly.

Trying to undermine Batohi is clearly a move to undermine any investigations against Juju and the EFF, but there is just the one slight blunder…

Good one, guys.

Batohi could barely muster the energy to respond, reports TimesLIVE:

“Well I’m not sure I should dignify that with a response actually,” was her initial reaction.

“I don’t know why people do this and I don’t want to speculate about it and I will not be distracted by it,” she added.

“I think these are tactics to try to distract you from doing your work and this is the start of it. There is going to be a lot more and I realise I have to fortify myself against these attacks.

“When I was interviewed I said this is a shark tank and it seems like the attacks have started but this will not distract us from our important work.”

Given that Shaun Abrahams spent his entire time as NPA head brown-nosing Zuma and those in power, Batohi has a long-overdue laundry list of crooks to take down.

Get on that, because South Africa is growing tired. The Daily Maverick has spent vast amounts of time and money uncovering the criminality in the highest corridors of this country’s government, and yet nobody is ever held to account.

In a stinging editorial published yesterday, titled “Your Move, South Africa”, the site outlined just how little time we have left to take action.

Here are some of the standout passages:

We’re still nursing the wounds after the mauling that was Jacob Zuma’s presidency. These wounds are deep and by now badly infected; it is not at all certain the patient, South Africa, can recover. Any moment now, it could slip into anaphylactic shock and the entire structure, whose foundation was so expertly eroded over the last decade, may collapse.

The economy is in freefall, people are desperately unhappy, the reforms that were expected to happen have yet to materialise, in great part thanks to the vicious fightback that’s been led by the Zuma-aligned forces…

The streets are angry. The streets are dangerous. It is time for decisive action by the South African state and its government. It is time for it to either put up or shut up…

It was the media who brought into the public domain the truth about the true extent of State Capture corruption…But we, the media, cannot do it in a vacuum any more. Independent media these days is an impecunious place to be, where journalists are barely surviving, working for publications that soon might be no more…

It is time for all, especially the bodies comprising the “security cluster”, to act. It is time for the NPA to take a trip to the nearest court with a bunch of empty folders. All they need is to print the media’s exposés and the accompanying attachments in the print shop across the street from the court. It is time for all ministers and everyone else paid by a public dime to show up for work and take action. Of course, results can’t be achieved in a day, as the problems are so deep and extensive that anyone can understand that it will take time to fix them. But they need to be SEEN as acting in people’s interest and not for their narrow, short-term political gain…

The independent journalists of this country are tired of shouldering that future, sometimes on their own. Over the many years, we uncovered what really happened in Marikana, we exposed the Guptas, Nkandla and the depths of State Capture. Since the #GuptaLeaks, literally hundreds of people involved in State Capture crimes have been outed, fully exposing the Secretary-General of the ruling party, and the top leadership of the third-biggest party in the country.

How many of them have been arrested, charged and jailed since, say, Marikana? How many? And you still expect us to consider South Africa a respectable state?

Relying on media and civil society to do these important jobs of government is unsustainable. The media fraternity cannot keep its motivation forever. Or our jobs. Or our lives. Do not think that investigations like VBS Theft, Money Laundering & Life’s Little Luxuries: Julius Malema’s time of spending dangerouslywill continue to materialise from thin air, over and over again. Journalists in South Africa operate in clear and present danger. It’s time to do something about it.

Read that editorial in full here.

It really is time that some heads started to roll, because when criminality is so blatantly exposed, and nobody is held to account, those who loot and plunder for personal gain only become further emboldened.

Shamila Batohi, Cyril Ramaphosa, anybody – the people of South Africa want to see justice in action, so best you get cracking on that.

[sources:news24&timeslive&dailymaverick]