Govt commended for updates on Mandela

was more of a gap, uncertainty,” professor of journalism Herman Wasserman said yesterday.
“This time information seems to be coming out more quickly,” said Wasserman, deputy head at the school of journalism.

This was after the presidency issued a statement on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to brief the media on the anti-apartheid stalwart and Nobel Peace Prize co-winner’s admission for tests “consistent with his age”.

Yesterday, presidency spokesperson Mac Maharaj responded to a Sapa inquiry to say there was no cause for alarm.

According to yesterday’s statement doctors would conduct further tests.
The public and family were also thanked for messages of support, and the media for affording him privacy.

It added that yesterday was the anniversary of Mandela receiving the Nobel Peace Prize with former apartheid-era president FW de Klerk on December 10, 1993.

This was in contrast to what was described as a “media blackout” when Mandela was admitted to Johannesburg’s Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg in January 2011 for a respiratory infection.

The dearth of information after one release issued on the Wednesday from the Nelson Mandela Foundation then escalated to rumours that he had died.

The Observer journalist David Smith wrote: “ . . . the Twitter rumour mill ran wild — not the social network’s finest hour.”

Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes also wrote after that time: “So while the Mandela family and African National Congress leaders visited Milpark last Thursday, the rest of the country huddled as if in a national waiting room, anxiously parsing fragmentary and confusing news reports for information.”

On the Friday, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and SA National Defence Force Surgeon General Vejaynand Ramlakan eventually gave details of Mandela’s treatment and recovery at a packed media briefing.

The foundation only issued a statement on the Monday after he returned home. Later it emerged that there had been a disagreement over who should handle communications over his health. — Sapa.