Cape Town - The City Press newspaper has lodged an application for leave to appeal with the Press Council, after it was found to be in serious breach of the Press Code.
Last week, Press Ombudsman Johan Retief sanctioned City Press and directed the paper to print an apology for giving too much information about a teenager who had run away from home, apparently to join the self-styled Islamic State, and was found on a plane at the Cape Town International Airport, bound for Turkey.
On April 12, the City Press ran a story on their front page with the headline: “Isis and the normal, suburban girl”.
Al Jama-ah party leader Ganief Hendricks complained to the Press Ombudsman that the City Press had not done enough to protect the identity of the child as its story gave a “vivid description of her and her circumstances”.
Retief said City Press had to print an apology for giving too much information about the girl, which he said was enough for locals to easily identify her.
Last week, in its application to the Press Appeals Panel for leave to appeal the ruling, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Ferial Haffajee said: “The intention of the story had been to demonstrate that the 15-year-old girl who allegedly tried to join the Islamic State, is a normal, suburban girl (as the headline denotes) from a normal, respectable family.
“The point of the story was that this type of recruitment could happen to any average suburban family, a threat which all parents should be aware of.”
Haffajee said it was for this reason that they gave details like the colour of the house and mentioned the name of the suburb and what the parents did for a living.
She went on to say that average readers would not have been able to identify the girl, but her community was well aware of who she was. “Nothing in the story could have identified the girl to people who did not already know. The story could not have caused any harm to her.”
Hendricks has until April 29 to respond to the application.
Cape Times