What happened?



Huffington Post South Africa published a blatantly racist and sexist blog post, without doing any background checks on the author or the "facts" being used in said blog post. Editor-in-Chief Verashni Pillay published the blog post because it fueled her own personal bias and agenda and even gloated about the amount of traffic the fake op-ed was bringing into the publication. The original blog was later removed when it was pointed out to Huffington Post and staff that the author could not be verified. Pillay then published an article herself defending herself and the call to publish the article.



Now, days later no action has been taken against Huffington Post South Africa and Verashi Pillay and Editor-at-large Ferial Haffajee have come off with no consequences to their actions.



It has since come to light that Marius Roodt is the man behind the original blog post that he specifically created to show that journalists would publish anything as long as the piece agrees with their personal biases. He proved that the Huffington Post and it's editorial staff has zero journalistic integrity and they they are using the platform they have to push their own agenda and that they will publish anything as long as it get's clicks.

Just so that we're clear: Marius Roodt is resigning from his job, for something that has nothing to do with his job, while the person who didn't do their job, is not resigning from the job that they failed to perform competently.

Huffpost, Verashni Pillay and Ferial Haffajee should be ashamed of themselves.



What needs to be done?



Marius Roodt should be praised for exposing Huffpost, Verashni Pillay and Ferial Haffajee and should be reinstated in his position at Centre for Development and Enterprise, if he should choose to take the position again. Media24 should take immediate steps against Verashni Pillay, Sipho Hlongwane and Ferial Haffajee, the incompetent staff that published racist and sexist content on the Huffington Post South Africa site because they personally endorsed the blog post, did zero journalistic work and used the blog post as clickbait to gain traffic and keep advertisers happy.



Why this needs to be corrected?

In a country that is rife with corruption and race tensions, we need journalists with journalistic integrity. It is more important for our democracy and the future of our people than ever before.