NewsTime, David Bullard and the middle finger

I see a competition for a cover design idea is on for the forthcoming Out to Lunch: Ungagged book by David Bullard. The one I have thought of is a hand showing the middle finger, and the middle finger is in the shape of a spade. This sums up the essence of the manner of the “Out to Lunch” column: in your face and calling a spade a spade. For many of us the only reason why Bullard gets into trouble is his forthrightness, which is refreshing in the SA media world of political correctness, ideological hogwash, excruciating attempts at intellectualism and the sheer fear some writers have of losing their jobs if they write the “wrong thing”. He has announced he won’t do the “Out to Lunch” column any more, however, I can’t see David keeping his mouth shut for long, if at all.

It was sad to receive the news that the last “Out to Lunch” column has been written and that NewsTime is closing down. I regarded it as a privilege to have David as my contents editor, and was most encouraged by his praise for my writing. Having lived far away from the action of NewsTime, so to speak, in both New Zealand and China, it is hard for me to see why the news-zine has to fold, though I gather it relates to not being able to generate enough advertising revenue.

It has been nearly a year that I have written for NewsTime and increasingly I felt part of a wonderful, compact community where I regularly read my favourites, other than Bullard, there was (and hopefully they will write somewhere else) Bev Tucker, Marlon Abrahams, Rudzani Floyd Musekwa, Sarah Britten and the hilarious and often thought-provoking Shelli Nurcombe-Thorne and her Agony Aunty column. Dammit, I am going to miss you in particular, Shelli. Then there are the specialists, Mervyn Dendy and Digby Ricci, with, respectively speaking, their formidable knowledge of rock music and movies/literature. It was often wonderful to read their columns as they displayed a scarily deep understanding of their subjects, where angels would fear to tread. I hope to be able to read all the above writers’ columns elsewhere. But it was just so comfy and homely to read them all in one place, NewsTime.

A weakness (and simultaneously a strength) of NewsTime was that it attracted generally very educated readers (judging by many comments on columns) and as I read columns I felt columnists were really just preaching to the choir. The only person who regularly really got remarks from ignoramuses was David Bullard, though those abecedarians did raise their little heads sometimes in, say, Floyd’s corner as well. Other zines, like Thought Leader, where I will be going back to write more, gets an unbelievable cross-section of intelligent and idiotic commentary: people you felt had simply not read your column and were purely reacting to your first paragraph. Or readers who had read carefully, and with enormous insight, proving me wrong on points (which I like to think I was always big enough to acknowledge). Or we would debate like adults.

Am I saying that perhaps the only successful online news-zines are those who attract the cretins, the pretentiously PC, as well as intelligent, well-balanced people eager to challenge even their own sensibilities? And people who hide behind that bloody boring Race Card or vain attempts at “intellectualism”? Yes I am.

So it seems a failing of NewsTime is that it was simply too intelligent, too forthright, too independent (with Bullard often leading the pack) for a country’s readership(s) that prefers something far less worthwhile. Not a good indictment of my country, is it?