Reporter ‘humanises’ murderous Table Mountain mugger, but is this ethical journalism?
Eight years ago, GroundUp published an article profiling a criminal from Hangberg called 'Norton', a prolific Table Mountain mugger.
Lester Kiewit speaks to journalist Kimon de Greef, a contributer to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Guardian.
"If you move one more time I’m going to shoot your wife."
In 2016 a man hailing from Hangberg, given the moniker 'Norton' by De Greef, was explaining to the Ground Up journalist his modus operandi for mugging hikers on Table Mountain.
Norton, a self-confessed multiple murderer, told de Greef that in the previous eight years, he'd mugged more than 40 hikers and mountain cyclists.
The son of a 26 gang member, Norton dropped out of school at the age of 15 and became a career criminal.
Kimon's piece (Table Mountain’s easy targets: On the trail with a Hout Bay mugger) on Norton and his crimes polarised readers of Ground Up at the time.
One reader wrote that it is 'a piece of brave journalism [that] lays bare the society our history has created'.
Others questioned the ethics of the piece.
Eight years on, de Greef says, from a journalistic perspective, people 'pay attention' to crime.
They are horrified by the idea that you can be held up by knifepoint on the mountain while in pursuit of leisure and relaxation, he says.
"Underneath that is, usually, a set of social and political and other economic forces that I think are worthwhile to return to journalistically."
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
But, is it ethical, asks Kiewit, to humanise those who dehumanise their victims through their crimes?
"I do think that there can be something useful about understanding an abstract and frightening thing at a more human level."
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
"At the time some people were really angry... [they said] you're just glamourising the life of someone who's a sociopath."
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
De Greef admits that, in retrospect, there were elements of the 2016 article that he could have 'softened', but in the main, he stands by the piece.
"The core exercise of taking people into a conversation with someone they're probably unlikely to meet, maybe highlights even more than reading mountain crime stats for the millionth time, what a harrowing situation this is."
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
"...and that the horror extends beyond the fact someone's hike got disrupted, to the fact we live in a place that produces a large number of 'Nortons'."
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
Kimon says the point of the article was not to condemn all those who grow up like Norton, but to also consider the obstacles they may have faced in their lives.
"If you were to grow up in that environment... what are your range of options?"
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
"The cards are still stacked against so many people in our country because of our history."
- Kimon de Greef, Freelance journalist
A few days after GroundUp published de Greef's piece, the publication responded to the reaction it provoked by explaining its stance on the role of journalism of this nature.
"We believe these stories are in the public interest: to publish them contributes to understanding our society," explained GroundUp.
It also noted how the publication had run articles covering hundreds of murders in Nyanga between 2008 and 2016, some of which profiled gangsters from the area, none of which received a fraction of the interest of the 'Norton' article.
"It perhaps speaks much about the class divide in Cape Town that a comparatively low-probability event that primarily affects middle-class people has generated so much more interest than the insanely high murder rate of one of the city’s poorest townships," concluded the piece.
Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.