It wasn't racism that burnt Bullard's bridges

What actually sealed Bullard's fate was an article he wrote in Empire magazine a month ago in which he strongly criticised Sunday Times for the way in which it handled his motoring features. The column he wrote last week was just the last straw that prompted Sunday Times editor, Mondli Makanya, to fire him.

Precedents

Bullard clearly did not learn any lessons from the fate of Sowetan sub-editor Llewellyn Kriel who was fired by Sunday Times owners, Avusa, in November last year for criticising his employers in a blog published on a competitor's website. Or from Rapport's scrapping of Deon Maas' column round about the same time.

The problem is that its probably perfectly natural for columnists and journalists, whose life's work involved criticising someone somewhere day in and day out, to assume that their employers are also fair game. The problem is that their employers run businesses and business generally does not take kindly to employees criticising them publicly. One simply does not see a disgruntled BMW employee sounding off about his company and bosses on the Mercedes Benz website - which is in effect what both Kriel and Bullard did.

No political pressure

Certainly, it is ludicrous to assume that political pressure on the Sunday Times was behind Bullard's demise. As the Sunday Times proves in pretty well no uncertain terms it is no friend of Government nor the ANC.

Equally ludicrous is the excuse that David Bullard is a racist. He is not. He is simply a celebrity and like all celebrities he knows full well that his future depends entirely on staying in the limelight and creating controversy. Bullard's added value is that he is an excellent writer and a very amusing one.

He also knew that in creating controversy he had to ensure week after week that what he had to say was what half his readers wanted to hear and what would get the other half hot under the collar and foaming at the mouth. It is no easy job particularly because to stay at the top of one's game one has to keep upping the ante - to become more and more controversial but columnists really have to have their wits about them not to stray from controversial into reckless.

Unhappy relationship

It is no secret however, that Bullard has been unhappy with the way in which the Sunday Times has been treating him for a number of years now. His frustration at the way his motoring columns were cut down to accommodate more and more advertising, which he felt he was responsible for attracting, led to his deciding to stop writing motoring articles. Knowing how much he loved his motoring beat, his level of frustration must have been enormously high for him to walk away from it all. He was also extremely frustrated at the way his articles were edited. He felt that certain changes made without consulting him, made him look as though he was incapable of writing English and often led to intense frustration when subsequent phone calls from readers and contacts chided him for making mistakes that he, in fact, never made.

But, his biggest disappointment was that he and other columnists got no backing from their newspapers. He gave the example of his books that he wrote, the proceeds of which all went to charity. He claimed that his newspaper never gave any support to what was a charity promotion.
He was equally frustrated to see his counterparts in the radio and TV industries having their celebrity status heavily leveraged and promoted by their respective channels and stations while newspaper columnists were very rarely promoted.

Held to ransom

It is a common problem with newspapers who seem to feel that by turning their columnists into celebrities they will somehow be compromised or held to ransom. It is a sign of media immaturity that has afflicted newspapers for decades now.

So, it is hardly surprising that Sunday Times and Bullard have parted company. The Sunday Times management have never much liked Bullard and his criticism of the paper in a competitors' magazine clearly annoyed them. Bullard isn't a racist - he actually wouldn't know how to be - he's just opinionated, cheeky, ambitious and a celebrity who knows how use controversy to keep him at the top of his game. His mistake was declaring war on his employers. In any business that's suicide.