By Aliki Karasaridis Do blog commenters warrant a second thought, never mind an award? Thought Leader blogger and Bookmark Award winner William Saunderson-Meyer recently told me that writers need to “grow a thick skin against the personal invective of those blog commenters who substitute abuse for argument”. But he did also say that bloggers should […]
Media
Posted inMedia
When tweets get up an editor’s nose, he shouldn’t become a twitter-troll
I don’t think any editor would want to be known as a species of Twitter-troll.
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Christmas is sick!
Christmas is sick. Based largely on sun worship and Scandinavian pagan ritual, Christmas in some form has been with us for thousands of years. Christians muscled in on an existing winter solstice festival, slapped their prophet on the front cover, claimed a rather unlikely virgin birth and beat up anybody with their large holy armies […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media, Tech
Dear Telkom
By Danny Glenwright Dear Telkom, You dirty old monopoly, you. You really got me. I’m actually writing to congratulate you. You were in the running for a few weeks but today I made it official. You have taken the prize for the poorest service I’ve ever received. And considering I’m a journalist who has lived, […]
Posted inMedia
Creative cop-out or truly South African?
Ayoba, Yebo, Hosh, Woza, Viva, Waka Waka etc. There are a couple of them. “Africanisms” I think they are called. Most notably used by our over-priced cellular providers We see these all around us. Billboards, TV, print, and dare we say, now even in everyday language use. These terms are made famous, and I’m not […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Still much to be done to persuade the ANC on press self-regulation
The ANC has different views on the press, many of which do not tally
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
See SA media in a bigger and changing picture
Lifting your gaze from the gritty business of fighting for information and press rights, it’s pretty interesting to consider South Africa in wider international context. How does the country’s media system stack up in comparison to the US, Italy, Russia and China? What’s common, what’s changing, what’s relevant? Here are the highlights of a conference […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
The digital hall of mirrors
The other morning I discovered that I no longer had 590 Facebook friends. I had 589. As you can imagine, I was devastated. Who had unfriended me? And why? What dreadful thing had I done to prompt such a drastic move? My thoughts circled through a range of possible explanations. Had somebody deleted their profile? […]
Posted inBusiness, Media, News/Politics
What was Woolies thinking?
At 16:29, a News24 Breaking News Alert came through to my inbox. I was intrigued, even a little excited. Had Uncle Bob announced his imminent retirement? Was the petrol price going down by half? No, apparently it was neither of these things. Instead, the headline read: “Woolies caves in on Christian magazines.” Years from now, […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
What do our okes have in common with Al Qaeda?
Who would have thought. It turns out that Al Qaeda share an appreciation for something that is at the core of South African culture: the double-cab bakkie. In this fascinating piece in Newsweek, it emerges that the Hilux is famous in war-torn regions across the world. Whether we’re talking the Taliban, Somali pirates or Iraqi […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
What some media don’t want you to think about
I recently resigned as monthly columnist at Media24’s daily newspapers after one of my columns was censored. The offence that led to the censorship? As a proponent of the position that the media’s allergic reaction to self-criticism is to its own detriment, I had dared to do exactly that: employ critical examination of the media. […]
Posted inMedia
Who else is sick of these ads?
It struck me in the Sandton City parking garage of all places. Revelation is normally not associated with the area in front of the pay stations below the Fountain Court — usually one is too busy swearing because the machine keeps rejecting your R20 note — but Sandton City sells space on its lift doors […]