Duarte's Maseko tongue-lashing: Malema weighs in on Twitter

EFF leader Julius Malema has, with a retweet, given an indication of his views on the tongue-lashing delivered by ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte to a journalist.

Duarte criticised eNCA reporter Samkele Maseko for asking "attacking" questions and said he "had a habit of intimidating everybody, a habit of making people feel you are the lord of the media".

The incident happened at an ANC media briefing on Tuesday, where Duarte described the reporter as “arrogant” and a “bully”.

The ANC’s Tony Yengeni said in a tweet during the fallout over the verbal altercation on Tuesday night: “I fully support comrade Jessie. Our ANC DSG for putting Maseko into his miserable DA little corner..!”

Malema retweeted the message to his own followers. He, too, has had his fair share of scraps with journalists. 

In the latest, the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is investigating whether he should be held liable for electoral misconduct for endangering journalist Karima Brown by tweeting her cellphone number and saying she was "not a real journalist".

Malema famously had a run-in with a BBC journalist, Jonah Fisher, during a press conference in 2010 at Luthuli House. At the time, he was the leader of the ANC Youth League.

When Fisher tried to ask a question, as in the case with Duarte and Maseko,  Malema called him "a bastard" and a "bloody agent".

“Here you behave or else you jump,” he said.