“It has also been established that she was not pregnant in recent times.”
The big question that came up was why anyone would make up a story about being pregnant or having more babies than they actually did. It seems that even the authorities don’t have a clear answer, especially since the journalist who first broke the news continues to defend his report. For a long time, he maintained that everything he wrote was accurate.
“Instead of being a cause for celebration however, it has resulted in an orchestrated campaign to discredit the story, the mother of the decuplets Ms Sithole, the Pretoria News’ editor, Piet Rampedi, as well as Independent Media and its chairperson, Dr Iqbal Survé, with claims that the story is ‘fake news’. It is not and we stand by our story,” Independent Media stated.
Pretoria News editor Piet Rampedi has apologised to his colleagues for the damage his story on SA’s so-called “Thembisa 10” babies did to Independent Media’s reputation. https://t.co/nxfM16ifPt
— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) June 22, 2021
As officials threatened legal action against the journalist who first reported the shocking birth, Piet Rampedi—who was also a close friend of Sithole and her husband—admitted that his story might not have been entirely accurate. He explained that he had seen Sithole with a noticeably large baby bump and only found out she had given birth to ten babies when she texted him with the news.
“Even though I stand by the fact that Sithole was pregnant, some aspects of the story could have been handled differently. Could I have done a better job? Absolutely! Especially when it comes to verifying the details. To be honest, I never approached the decuplets story as an investigation. I didn’t use any investigative tools or follow a checklist,” Piet wrote, as reported by News24.
Believing that Sithole and her husband had no reason to deceive him, he went ahead and published the extraordinary story.
The reason behind the mother’s deception about her pregnancy and the babies remains unknown. For now, support has been extended to the woman in question.
This case continues to be shrouded in mystery.
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