The term “media development” might remind many people in South Africa of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA). Well, the term has become a buzzword in international media financing. My aim here is to draw upon a talk I gave in 2007 at the Sol Plaatje Institute for Media Leadership/Konrad-Adenuer-Stiftung conference for media executives […]
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Posted inNews/Politics
Separatism, federalism or multiculturalism?
Whatever disgust I felt at the conduct of the Forum of Black Journalists, it paled into insignificance when compared with the animals from the University of the Free State. Whatever drove those morons to carry out this latest outrage is irrelevant. They have to face criminal charges. Didn’t your mommies teach you basic human decency? […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Minister loses children
“Where they are going we don’t know,” says the minister of education about the kids in grades 10, 11 and 12 missing from school. She lost them? Seriously? She should have a chat with the minister of finance. He knows why those kids are not in school. Many 14- to 17-year-olds are not school-goers precisely […]
Posted inGeneral
The need for a new enlightenment
Enough with the pig ignorance, violence and stupidity. Enough with bowing to religious bullies and bigots, racists and sexists. And, most of all, enough limiting ourselves to the narrow confines the past has laid down. The time has come to shake all that off, like the famous workers’ chains, and rise up to the potential […]
Posted inBusiness, Tech
African leadershift: social capitalism
There’s an emerging realisation that the strength of distributed nodal power bases is almost unconquerable. Guerrilla movements, social media and small, focused niches of the Long Tail cause disruption that produces evolutionary economic shifts. Market-making is shifting into the hands of some unlikely new leaders in the quick online world. The butterfly effect of the […]
Posted inGeneral
What do we want from our life?
The American elections are quite interesting to outsiders for a change. Usually as a non-involved party, the endless primaries and the actual elections tend to be terrible yawn affairs. It’s normally time to cancel all newsletter subscriptions from the US. Not this time around. It’s good to see some of the younger generation engaging in […]
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 inNews/Politics
Cognitive dissonance of Chancellor House audit
Jon Qwelane’s column of February 18 2008, “Batten the hatches of escape”, expresses his concern — and no little anger — at the number of people, particularly those with skills, who are leaving South Africa. He asks whether it is not possible, on the one hand, for the government to make it more difficult for […]
Posted inGeneral
Mentoring and coaching in diversity
Different versions of mentoring and coaching have been around for centuries as forms of skills transfer and passing along valuable trades from older members of society to the younger generation. Experiential on-the-job training comes a long way as a form of education and skills transfer. It is only recently, as late as the 1960s, that […]
Posted inMedia
Zuma and Forum of Black Journalists disgrace South Africa
There is no nice way of saying this, but those black journalists who chased away their white colleagues at a function attended by Jacob Zuma should not be allowed to continue in this profession. If they are to provide a safeguard against political abuse and report on the moral well-being of this country, then I […]
Posted inBusiness, Sport
An hour with Jake White and Gavin Varejes
When Gavin Varejes approached Jake White with the offer that kept him in South Africa, millions of local sports supporters rejoiced. The thought of losing one of our sporting heroes to England, Wales or worse, Australia was more than we could bear. The eleventh-hour offer by Richmark Holdings Group to White and his subsequent acceptance […]
Posted inGeneral
It’s resonant leadership, silly
Too late to be part two of the “IQ is dead” piece The recent intense discussions about leadership on Thought Leader speak volumes about our diverse understandings of what leadership really is. There seems to be as many different views about what leaders are expected to be and do as there are readers out there. […]