Cape Town - A website that comments on the South African media has retracted its factually incorrect post about the Cape Argus’s coverage of the Zephany Nurse case and has apologised to the Cape Argus for the error.
Grubstreet, run by media commentator Gill Moodie on Biznews.com, last week criticised the Cape Argus in a post for naming the child as Zephany Nurse. However, the girl, who turned 18 yesterday, sought an interdict to prevent the media from using the identity that was given to her by the family of the woman alleged to have kidnapped her.
The child had in fact said in court papers that she was fine with being identified as Zephany Nurse. The girl was successful in her application and the media may not reveal her other identity.
On Tuesday Moodie said in a post: “Subsequent to the publishing of a “front pages” post last week, in which Grubstreet criticised the Cape Argus for apparently identifying a 17-year-old Cape Town girl kidnapped as an infant in hospital, the paper has pointed out through a lawyer’s letter that a court order entitles the Argus to use the name given to the girl by her biological parents.
“The paper’s attorneys also pointed out that the Cape Argus was not the only media organisation to have named the girl in this manner and insisted that Grubstreet apologise for the comments.
“Grubstreet is happy to put the record straight and retracts last week’s criticism of the Cape Argus, and apologises for the error and for singling out the newspaper.”
Cape Argus editor Gasant Abarder said: “From the start, we have prided ourselves as a newsroom for the responsible manner that we have covered this case, with due regard for the child involved. We are closely connected to this case and have been covering it for the last 18 years. So it came as a complete surprise when I read the Grubstreet post.
“It is also unfortunate that we had to resort to our lawyers to set the record straight after repeated attempts on twitter to get Grubstreet and Moodie to correct the error.”