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Stats SA temporarily bans two newsrooms over GDP embargo breach

Statistics South Africa spokesperson Trevor Oosterwyk confirmed to Fin24 on Monday afternoon that Newzroom Afrika and YouFM would be restricted from attending its next quarter gross domestic production because they breached the embargo terms during the release of the fourth quarter 2019 GDP figures.

An embargo is a stipulation time restriction applied to information from a press briefing or media release, in some cases because of its financially sensitive nature. Embargos are often imposed on Stats SA data to ensure that all stakeholders receive the statistics at about the same time.

Companies are likely to make significant short- and long-term strategic decisions on the basis of gross domestic production statistics, and the violation of an embargo could potentially give some an unfair advantage in this regard.

Human error

Oosterwyk told Fin24 that the YouFM would have to sit out the briefing releasing the 2020 GDP statistics. Stats SA accepted a written apology from Newzroom Afrika regarding their breach, but will still impose the sanction for the sake of consistence, Oosterwyk said.

"It was [a breach of] an embargo in human error for the most part," said Oosterwyk, adding that the ban was until the release of the next GDP statistics, "so they will miss the release of 2020 quarter one".

"A release like the GDP is a sensitive market product. That is something that can mess up the system one way or another," said Oosterwyk.

Oosterwyk said Stats SA was not considering doing away with embargoed briefings in spite of the breaches, but urged journalists and editors to take the embargo conditions on each Stats SA briefing seriously.

"Bloomberg has been restricted for breaking the embargo. American media has looked to end all pre-briefing with embargoes, but SA media is not at that point yet. In the past occasion three or four times restrictions have been applied to newsrooms because of such breaches," Oosterwyk said.

Last week, Stats SA's statistics showed that the South African economy shrank by 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to new GDP numbers.

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