It is a sad day when any newspaper closes, and the Weekender, whose last edition came today, was a paper that had enriched my Saturday reading considerably and had found a definite place in my home. There are two questions one must ask: why did it fail, and does this mean there is no place for such a serious newspaper in this big city of ours?
Continue Reading 2 comments November 7th, 2009
Communication Minister Siphiwe Nyanda’s response to my criticism of the new Public Service Broadcasting Bill is a disappointment, to say the very least. He resorts to the tired old cliches of declaring those who criticise his Bill to be resistant to change and unpatriotic.
Continue Reading 1 comment November 6th, 2009
Here are two interesting new forms of “collaborative” reporting, based on entirely new internet funding models: www.spot.us and www.demandmedia.com
Continue Reading Add comment November 2nd, 2009
The Public Broadcasting Bill published this week contains some good things, some bad things and some very bad things. If it is adopted in its current form, it will take us a away from public broadcasting and back towards state broadcasting again.
Continue Reading 1 comment October 31st, 2009
Great journalism comes from those who are prepared to swim against the tide, tirelessly and fearlessly. A few of them were in town this week.
Continue Reading Add comment October 31st, 2009
Sundays could become interesting again, at least for those of us who like our weekend newspapers. There is nothing like an infusion of new energy into the Sunday newspaper market, and hints of a circulation battle, to liven things up.
Continue Reading Add comment October 31st, 2009
The Department of Communications responded firmly to the auditor-general’s report into the SABC.
The report showed that there appears to have been wild and uninhibited pilfering of the SABC coffers under former Group CEO Dali Mpofu and financial director Robin Nicholson (still, incidentally, the man with the keys to the safe). One’s immediate response was that at last someone was showing strong leadership at the department and taking a firm hand. But the measures they proposed were a direct move to usurp the role of the new SABC board and take control into the Ministry.
Continue Reading Add comment October 31st, 2009
President Jacob Zuma seems fond of acts of political theatre. He arrives unannounced to check on a small town mayor. He sets up a hotline for people to complain direct to the presidency. He visits poor whites and helps them register for social grants. Is there substance to these acts, or are they just empty, media-centric gestures? And what is the place of such political theatre in our politics?
Continue Reading 2 comments September 30th, 2009
In between the old SABC and the new one, I twice had a taste of what a national public broadcaster can do. It is a good time to recall those moments, as they get off to a fresh start.
Continue Reading 1 comment September 24th, 2009
Oh my gosh, the Sunday Independent has what looks like it might be a full-time editor. What accounts for this sudden lavish spending by the Independent group?
Continue Reading 3 comments September 22nd, 2009
Business Day editor Peter Bruce had a go in his column on Monday at the head of First National Bank for suggesting to his staff that they should stop their newspaper subscriptions - costing over R1-m a year - and read it all online. Bruce was being - I am afraid - struthious.
Continue Reading 3 comments September 18th, 2009
How parliament chose its candidates for the SABC board - and the arm wrestling that went on behind-the-scenes - tells us a lot about power in this society, and how it is exercised.
Continue Reading Add comment September 17th, 2009
Journalists are like high wire artists: magnificent when they get it right, but with a long way to fall when they get it wrong. And the difference is often only a shift in balance. The Caser Semenya story is a case in point.
Continue Reading 3 comments September 17th, 2009
Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio
Among the main results from the World Association of Newspaper’s Newsroom Barometer (a survey of 700 editors and senior news execs in 120 countries) for this year:
- 86% believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm, and 83% believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.
- Two-thirds believe some editorial functions will be outsourced, despite frequent newsroom opposition to the practice.
- A plurality - 44% - believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41% last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35% last year), 12% mobile and 7% e-paper. The rest were unsure.
- A majority of editors - 56%- believe news in the future will be free, up from 48% from last year’s survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11% were unsure. - From Editors’ Weblog
There is a crisis in trust and communication between the British public and the mainstream media, a new report has concluded. The gulf between public expectations of news provision and the actual nature of articles, which oscillate between esoteric or irresponsible, leaves readers feeling confused and excluded.
The report, entitled ‘Public Trust In The News’ was conducted by researchers from Manchester and Leeds Universities and was published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. - From Editors Weblog
Reflections on Journalism in the Transition to Democracy - Ethics & International Affairs 18, no. 3 (2004).
Journalism in the Age of the Market
- Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture, Centre for Civil Society, University of KZN, Aug 2002
The Untimely Death of SA’s Finest Daily - Sunday Times, May 2005
“Two Newspapers, Two Nations? The Media and the Xenophobic Violence” from Go Home or Die Here, edited by Shireen Hassim Tawana Kupe and Eric Worby (WUP, 2008)
Remarks at Goedgedacht Forum, October 2008
The rise of social network journalism - From The 2009 Flux Trend Review (Macmillan, 2008)
A recent piece by me on the Zapiro cartoon row which appeared in Comment is Free, a Guardian blog.
