Dan Pacheco Social networking is a headache to the mass media because it sets up thousands of niches, demographics and interests. But luckily, says Dan Pacheco, people themselves contribute to creating such niche–related content. In a twist to Marshall McLuhan’s famous “media are the message”, he declared: “The people are the content.” However, “your staff […]
Guy Berger
Posted inMedia
Towards a “world free speech day”
No one could disagree with a global day dedicated to “press” freedom, as marked around the world on Saturday 3 May. Under the auspices of UNESCO, and as agreed by the UN General Assembly a decade or so ago, the 3 May every year is “World Press Freedom Day”. An important cause, but the very […]
Posted inMedia
A year of media freedom violations
Kaitira Kandjii. Some Southern African journalists spend more time in the courtroom than in the newsroom, according to Kaitira Kandjii, director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa). He referred to a flood of defamation cases, including five against the Times of Swaziland. “One Malawian journalist has over 30 pending legal cases.” But Kandjii […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
Wanted: $136 million to grow African media
Media movers meeting in Maputo: Amadou Ba (All Africa.com), Prof Fackson Banda (Rhodes University), and Eric Chinje (World Bank). Three years of work came to part fruition in Maputo this week, when some 50 media enthusiasts concretised research into a proposed institution, a project focus and a pretty big budget. People like Ba, Banda and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Skewering stereotypes about child support grants
Sunday’s City Press saw a column by deputy editor Lizeka Mda who repeated her standing antipathy to government grants for child support. In the past, she’s argued that if her tax money is encouraging girls to have babies, at least they should be required to present school certificates when the children are old enough to […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Interviewing Mr MK in 1991
Lest anyone forget how South Africa nearly exploded when Chris Hani was assassinated, here are some front pages of the paper I edited at the time: Missing, however, is the wonderful full cover from South of Hani standing outside Parliament in 1992, with the headline “Next year we rule from within this place”. Democracy was, […]
Posted inMedia
Pilger’s contrasts make him credible
Pic: Pilger with Guy Berger Crusading journo John Pilger confronted some contradictions last week — and came out well on top of them. In Grahamstown to collect an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University, the angry Australian who champions the cause of the global underdog found himself to be quite the celeb. It’s an irony that […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Mega-crisis in the making?
Things come together, the capitalism system cannot hold. That’s the message from Canadian activist academic Dr Sandra Rein, speaking at a seminar on gender activism at Rhodes University on the weekend. And here we were thinking that our biggest problems are racism, crime, political degeneration and electricity. “We have a global crisis if you look […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Zuma FBJ briefing: The row should be about secrecy, not race
The Forum of Black Journalists is welcome to choose whoever it likes to attend its meetings. Black, white or blue. It’s a free country. But no journalists, of whatever hue, should be in the business of organising off-the-record briefings with political leaders. Wasn’t anything learnt from the infamous 2003 Bulelani Ngcuka briefing that caused enormous […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Why is the ANC looking at a media tribunal?
ANC leaders charged with overseeing a probe into a tribunal for the media defended the initiative under interrogation by the country’s editors yesterday. The Jacob Zuma-led ANC confirmed at December’s Polokwane conference a decision by the then Mbeki-dominated organisation last July to investigate whether the current system of press self-regulation should be replaced by a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Looking at a loser: Ramaphosa the ‘never-ran’
“Newspapers said I was a dark horse in regard to Polokwane. I object to this — I may be dark, but I’m not a horse.” So said Cyril Ramaphosa last night at the launch of Anthony Butler’s biography of him. Describing himself as a “victim” of the writer, the former ANC secretary general nevertheless complimented […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Astronomy the answer to Eskom and our injured national pride
No one thought any worse of Californians when that US state plunged into a power crisis a few years back. Yet we South Africans are upset about both our current (or lack thereof!) situation and its effect on our image. The sentiment is that we’ve now been shown up as no different to the “rest […]