WITH the article was a photograph of City man, Wynand Viljoen, lying naked on the floor after police apprehended and cuffed him.
The exact circumstances of why Viljoen broke down the glass door of the doctor’s rooms and was found wandering around the premises in the state he was in, was not clear at the time of us going to print.
The fact of the matter was that he was arrested and charged with ‘residential burglary’, and subsequently appeared in the Richards Bay Magistrate’s Court.
We reported on the case as we do with any incident that police regard as a criminal offence and charge perpetrators in court.
We follow the strict rule that accused are not identified until they plead in court – which Viljoen did last Monday.
Inevitably, when newspapers publish such stories, some social media responses and letter writers place the sensationalism tag onto it, accusing newspapers of cheap stunts to ‘sell more papers’.
It is a proven fact that while some consumers may be tempted to buy a paper to read a particular article that intrigues them (as this specific incident no doubt would have done), a ‘sensationalist’ story has no meaningful impact on circulation figures.
It is simply a case of publishing news that is important and serves to inform the community – especially relating to topics such as crime, corruption, poor public service delivery and such matters.
And that is why as many readers on social media supported the publication of the above incident.
Intentional malice is against the media code of conduct, to which this newspaper subscribes. We simply state the facts.
This includes doing follow-up work so that all relevant facts eventually emerge to eliminate false perceptions.
And this is exactly what we did in Viljoen’s case – and we are happy to report that there was an acceptable explanation for his embarrassing behaviour and all charges have been dropped.
I, like so many other I am sure, old Zululand residents, follow the news on Facebook as much as we can. Sometimes we don’t get the full story.
This man that was apprehended , naked, in a doctors rooms, had a perfectly acceptable explanation for his behaviour of that night and the case was dropped. Can you tell me what his explanation was? I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.