South Africa’s unresolved legacy of apartheid continues to haunt us, and the relentless attacks against Dr Iqbal Survé, Chairman of Independent Media, lay bare the festering fault lines within South African journalism.
Chris Roper’s latest hit piece, “Nausea at Lunch,” published in the Financial Mail, is far more than a personal assault on Dr Survé — it is a glaring symptom of a media ecosystem that stubbornly resists transformation and wields propaganda as a weapon to crush those who threaten its entrenched power. The response is not a petty tit-for-tat rebuttal but a searing indictment of a media that masquerades bias as truth, undermining the democratic ideals it pretends to champion.
South Africa’s media landscape often mirrors its economy: a façade of progress concealing a deep-seated resistance to change. Three decades after apartheid, the mainstream media remains largely in the grip of a white conservative establishment determined to preserve its dominance at all costs. When Dr Survé acquired Independent Media in 2013, it signalled a rupture in this order, a black industrialist taking the reins of a major media house.
Rather than being celebrated as a milestone in media diversity, his move was met with a torrent of hostility that exists to this day. The resistance was not about Dr Survé’s business decisions alone but his identity. This successful black entrepreneur dares to defy the unwritten rules of an elite club and establishment that tolerates no outsiders. Roper’s article hinges on a foundational falsehood: Dr Survé “ran out of real journalists willing to compromise their ethics and tell his lies for him.” This is a vicious smear, devoid of evidence and steeped in contempt for the professionals at Independent Media. One is compelled to ask Roper to name the journalists who were coerced into churning out “puff pieces” on behalf of Dr Survé. The simple truth is that he can’t because they do not exist.
Roper’s attack then pivots to Edmond Phiri, Jamie Roz, and Nonhlanhla Shezi, whom he brands as puppets or fabrications. Shezi, Phiri, and Roz are not staff journalists but opinion writers who are free to choose their subjects or article topics, a distinction Roper conveniently ignores. Phiri, for one, faced a Press Council hearing, which he attended virtually and openly explained why his writing focused on Sekunjalo. He stated that he wrote about it without any directive from Dr Survé. Shezi, an independent opinion writer, wrote a piece that Roper mocks without substance, failing to engage its arguments.
These writers are targeted for one reason: they dared to portray Dr Survé positively, a sin unforgivable in a media culture that demands his demonisation. Roper’s playbook is as old as it is predictable. In his seminal work on propaganda techniques, Henry Conserva observed that “the oldest trick of the propagandist is to demonise and dehumanise the hated other.” Here, Roper falsely reduces Dr Survé to a caricature of a manipulative overlord, intent on controlling the narrative at any cost.
Yet, in doing so, he mirrors the tactics he accuses Dr Survé of employing while stripping credibility from anyone perceived to be defending him. Roper is not conducting journalism but propaganda smear and a calculated assassination of Dr Survé’s character. The white mainstream media amplifies this tactic with a chilling consistency: positive or even neutral stories about Dr Survé are met with what can only be described as a “strategic silence”. Take, for example, the Sekunjalo legal battle against banks over discriminatory account closures — a matter of principle distorted or ignored by competitor media in favour of narratives supporting the established financial giants.
The elective blackout is not an oversight but a deliberate campaign to erase inconvenient truths. The irony of Roper’s assault is palpable. He accuses Dr Survé of orchestrating propaganda while his piece reeks of it. Dismissing Shezi’s article as “bootlicking nonsense” without engaging its arguments is little more than a classic deflection, a refusal to debate on the merits of an idea while resorting to ad hominem attacks. The Independent Media does not micromanage its opinion writers, a freedom that appears alien in the echo chambers inhabited by critics like Roper. One wonders: are Roper’s relentless hit pieces commissioned by the media barons whose interests he serves? Roper’s conspicuous silence on the influence wielded by his employers or white media owners reveals a double standard.
Every move made by Dr Survé is scrutinised, while the white and other mainstream media owners are conveniently left unexamined. Dr Survé’s meteoric rise in business is a journey of defiance. He built a business empire spanning media, IT, and fisheries without bowing to the patronage networks that define South African business. His acquisition of Independent Media was not a gift from the establishment but a hard-won prize that unsettled the comfortable hierarchies of the past. At the PIC commission, he revealed attempts to strong-arm him into merging Independent Media with Tiso Blackstar (now Arena Holdings), a proposition he rejected.
Dr Surve’s sin is his independence: a black industrialist thriving outside the established business factions that prop up the status quo. In a country where economic power remains concentrated among a privileged few, Dr. Survé’s success is a provocation the old guard cannot stomach. While South Africa’s media fixates on tearing him down, the international community recognises his accomplishments. His former chairmanship of the BRICS Business Council and accolades from esteemed institutions in Europe and the Nordics affirm his stature—credentials no baseless smear can erase.
Yet, these achievements are met at home with derision or deafening silence. Roper’s obsession with mocking Dr Survé’s presence at Davos, portraying it as self-aggrandisement, reveals more about his insecurities than his target. A South African commanding global influence without political office threatens the narrative of a media elite that prefers its icons tethered to familiar power structures. Roper closes his diatribe with a sanctimonious flourish: “We care about this because it’s an example of how bad actors use media to craft narratives counter to reality.” Who is this “we”? A self-appointed cabal of media gatekeepers anointing themselves as arbiters of truth? The real bad actor is the journalist who wields his pen like a weapon, crafting vindictive screeds to demolish a man’s reputation while cloaking it as a noble critique. Roper’s attacks are not about accountability but control over a narrative the old guard has long monopolised. South African media’s refusal to transform, its weaponisation against competitors like Dr Survé, and its chokehold on narratives expose a rot that undermines democracy itself.
Roper’s candle burns not brighter but dimmer with each attack, illuminating only his hypocrisy. The weaponisation of the media to suppress alternative voices and narratives must be abandoned if we are to build a press that genuinely reflects the diversity and dynamism of our society. It is incumbent upon media practitioners, critics, and the public alike to demand accountability—not just from the individuals who write these pieces but from the institutions that allow such practices to flourish unchecked. The continued use of propaganda to smudge the reputation of a black media owner is a sharp reminder that our media still has a long way to go before it can truly claim to represent the diversity of our society. The fault lines in South African media and journalism are more glaring. The mainstream media, long the preserve of an exclusive, conservative clique, is quick to demonise any figure who threatens to upset its established order.
Dr Survé is not the villain here. Instead, he is the mirror reflecting an industry deeply unwilling to transform and evolve. Roper’s article shows that it is time for South African journalism to face its reckoning—not through petty sniping, but through a ruthless examination of its inherent systemic biases and a commitment to the diversity it claims to value. Anything less is a betrayal of the public it serves.
*Senekal de Wet is Editor-in-Chief of Independent Media