Media

I invite all readers to look at Christi van der Westhuizen’s photo on her blog on Thought Leader. Please note — hopefully without my prior interpretation — that she has chosen a photo where she is looking “down” on you, suggesting she, as a woman, is not looking “up” at you, in other words she […]

From the time the drawings of the Prophet Muhammad set the world alight, it’s been clear that cartooning — the right to draw — will be at the epicentre of media freedom debates. South Africa’s been a tinder-box too since ANC president Jacob Zuma sued Zapiro for defamation for attaching a shower to the head […]

South Africans do love to get their knickers in a twist, don’t we? The Sunday Times‘s Zapiro cartoon this past weekend had Jacob Zuma unbuttoning his knickers while Justice was being held down. I’m trying to finish a book, I’m late with three chapters and I keep getting asked — no doubt as someone who […]

With his latest Sunday Times cartoon, Zapiro has ventured where angels should fear to tread. I am saying “should” because it shows that journalist-cartoonists can be as desensitised as other South Africans about the social crises that beset us. I am talking about his shameless use of rape as metaphor. South Africa has been staggering […]

At first glance, this might look like a shameless attempt to gain reads by listing the hottest topics in the South African blogosphere right now. And in some ways, it is: you have no idea how motivating it is to watch your name slipping down the rankings on the Thought Leader home page. I may […]

At their recent national convention in St Paul, Minnesota, the Republicans were quick to blame the “liberal media” for many of the ills of society. So too were their supporters in the conservative press. In response to questions regarding the suitability of John McCain’s running mate, for example, Jeffrey Kuhner of the Washington Times — […]