The antics of Dr Iqbal Survé's Independent Media will come under further scrutiny at the Press Council this week.

News24 journalist Karyn Maughan's case against Independent Media will put the newspaper group in the spotlight for the second time in a week and provide an important test of when news commentary crosses a line into gratuitous insults and harm that should not be allowed in our newspapers. It will be a case watched by analysts and commentators who take swipes at those they write about, and the politicians and others on the receiving end of those swipes.

It has been a challenging week for Survé's editorial staff. After a press conference in which they teamed up with ANC politician Lindiwe Sisulu to unmask the anonymous social media commentator "Goolam", they had to issue a grovelling apology because, they said, they had named the wrong person through a "technical error". The comedian they wrongly fingered is now suing them for R2.5-million and it is hard to see how they can avoid settling with him.

This comes only a few months after they were forced by the high court to apologise to Daily Maverick for claiming that this publication had orchestrated and sponsored a fake news...