The Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Post and New York Sun are gone. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last edition on Tuesday. The San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer and Minneapolis Star-Tribune are in their death throes. Even the mighty New York Times had to go hat in hand to a shady Mexican billionaire recently to keep […]
Media
Posted inMedia
Where is the media’s tipping point?
What is the “tipping point” which sees the media deliberately shift from passive reporter to active crusader? What pushes the media into pro-active campaign mode deliberately making the news and not merely the quasi-objective spectator telling the world what’s happening, when, where, to who, why and how? Precedents, great and small, exist galore. When I […]
Posted inMedia
Let the sunshine in
This week is national Sunshine Week in the US. It has nothing to do with the weather (though after the past weekend, some ultraviolet rays would be lekker), nor does it have anything to do with the Mordoresque financial climate (except indirectly). It has everything to do with opening the closed doors of secrecy everywhere […]
Posted inMedia
Soccer fever will pick up before the World Cup
International interest in the Fifa World Cup is expected to pick up about nine months before kick-off in June 2010 based on data supplied by Google. We determined that interest started in September 2005 by looking at which relevant World Cup keywords were popular on Google in the run-up to the World Cup in Germany […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
Seven fat years
Sunday February 22 2009 marked the seventh anniversary of the well-intentioned but ultimately misguided call-up of medicines frequently referred to as complementary medicines. Officially the call-up ended on August 22 2002, but the Medicines Regulatory Affairs Cluster of the Department of Health continues to accept documentation for these products. The Medicines Control Council (MCC) seems […]
Posted inMedia
Is it wrong to mock Indians?
So The Rude Awakening has offended the Indians, and people who are offended on their behalf. Hardly surprising, really; in the past, Jeremy Mansfield and Co have incensed the whole of Boksburg and Brakpan combined, so nothing scares them. It seems that there have been a number of complaints about a show that broadcast last […]
Posted inMedia
Finding a way forward as African broadcast reform falters
Transformation of African state-owned broadcasters into proper public-service institutions has come to a standstill. For instance, Zambia’s progressive laws passed in 2002 have yet to be implemented. In role-model South Africa, the crisis around the SABC shows the need for a major re-design of the public broadcaster, but parliament is focussed only on getting rid […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
SA’s mediascape faces the challenge of getting more voices
Our eyes and ears are attentive to the mainstream media as the most influential platform in the coming elections. But it’s also important that there are also many other smaller players adding to the diversity of coverage. Some of these enterprises owe their existence to the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), which has spent […]
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Cost-cutting measures cutting into the integrity of journalism
It was difficult to learn of the departure from mainstream media of one of the finest editors in the country and not become truly alarmed. The departure of a perceptive journalist who is intuitively connected to his community is, indeed, a monumental loss to the media profession and society in general. In a nutshell, the […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
History has moved on
I’ve been following this whole Jewish money, influence issue with some interest and, I’ll confess, not a little alarm. Specifically, the fact that many respondents to Sentletse Diakanyo’s piece were absolutely unfazed by the fact that one of his key sources has a (justified) reputation as a neo-Nazi. In debates both on Thought Leader and […]
Posted inMedia
You know the US is in a recession when Cash4Gold.com advertises in the Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is one of the most watched events on the US calendar. You can compare it with a Curry Cup final where the Blue Bulls are playing and Pretoria has a population of 50 million people. An estimated 100 million US viewers watched the final on Sunday. For most people the game on […]
Posted inMedia, Sport
Here’s to a great champion who deserves more fans
He doesn’t get a lot of publicity. When he wins, again and again, it often doesn’t make the papers. As an athlete, he ranks right up there with the best in the world. He’s earned over R7,7-million, but chances are that many of you can’t recall his name. “Let’s hope,” Charl Pretorius wrote recently, “there […]