The Afrikaans Sunday paper published a report according to which the station would no longer play Afrikaans music, not knowing that it was given false information as part of the station’s annual April Fools’ Day prank.
“Singer Kurt Darren gave us a ‘tip’, we enquired about it from the station and they confirmed in a formal statement that the station would no longer play Afrikaans music. Neither the station, nor Darren indicated that it was an April Fools’ joke. We had no reason to question the correctness of the statement or to suspect that it was not genuine,” Du Plessis says in response to an enquiry from TheMediaOnline.
According to Du Plessis, Jacaranda should have informed Rapport of the joke in advance. “Jacaranda was unprofessional. Rapport could still have played along without diminishing the impact of the ‘joke’.”
He says the tradition of April Fools’ Day allows for a degree of deception, but this has to happen “within agreed upon bounds”.
Rapport‘s editorial staff members and its readers will in future double-check everything Jacaranda tells them. “Their credibility has been damaged,” says Du Plessis.
When it became apparent Jacaranda’s “ban” on Afrikaans music was a joke, Michelle van Os, the station’s public relations manager, href=”/themedia/view/themedia/en/page259?oid=6628&sn=Detail” target=_blank mce_href=”/themedia/view/themedia/en/page259?oid=6628&sn=Detail”told TheMediaOnline she thought !_LT_EMRapport !_LT_/EMwould “take the joke in good spirit”.
