SOUTH AFRICAN journalists urged the media yesterday to end “censorship and bias” in favour of big business following the suspension of one of the few black editors.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) led a march to the offices of the daily Citizen newspaper in Johannesburg to protest against editor Steve Motale’s suspension.

The Patriotic Alliance, the Black First Land First campaign and the Congress of South African Students also joined the demonstration.

CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said Mr Motale had been victimised over stories exposing “white monopoly capital’s corruption.”

Calling for a post-apartheid transformation of the media, he added: “The exploitation of journalists in general and black journalists in particular is rife in the industry.”

Forum of Journalists for Transformation president Piet Rampedi told protesters that the bourgeois media “feel that black journalists should be treated like disposable nappies, nannies and garden boys.”

Mr Motale apologised to President Jacob Zuma last year for misreporting — along with the rest of the mainstream media — the facts of the 2005 trial of his friend Schabir Shaik, which led to sustained criticism of the then vice-president.

The Citizen took that letter off its website in July this year.

Mr Motale, the Citizen’s only senior black employee, was suspended earlier this month, weeks after publishing a damning probe into former finance minister Trevor Manuel, current Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu.

Citizen publisher Eureka Zandberg said Mr Motale’s suspension was “an internal disciplinary matter.”