Journalists in the traditional media dealt with their ethics through a set of established rules and practices. We should not accept gifts or freebies, or allow a conflict of interest in stories we cover. We should be immunised from the influence of advertisers. We should separate commentary and news reporting and convey the views of all parties to a story. The watchwords were objectivity and fairness, and these values were reflected in codes of conduct and newsroom rituals.
Continue Reading January 31st, 2012
There is a piece of what some might pass off as journalism in our newspaper today which is so infuriating that I cannot ignore it. It is a breathtaking exemplar of the dangers of bad science reporting. Under the strange headline “Scorched tree poser for cellphone giant”, the Saturday Star purports to take on the controversy over whether cellphone signals are causing damage to humans and the environment.
Continue Reading January 28th, 2012
It has been a year of vigorous and healthy contestation. We have fought over the independence of the judiciary, the freedom of the media and the appropriateness of presidential appointments. We have seen combat in parliament, the courts, the streets, the ruling party, the biggest opposition party, the provinces, the cities, and even the cabinet. We have arm-wrestled over political power, policy, ideology, history, language and song lyrics.
Continue Reading January 7th, 2012
We are apocalyptic, us South Africans. If our democracy is less than perfect, we say it is dying. If a Bill passed by parliament threatens journalists, it is the end of freedom and farewell to investigative reporting. If we lose a political battle, we think we have lost the final war.
Continue Reading January 7th, 2012
No individual impacted more on South African newspapers in recent years than Deon du Plessis, the Daily Sun publisher, who died on the weekend.
Continue Reading January 7th, 2012
It is worth comparing some of the front pages for the day after the Julius Malema hearings in the ANC’s central-Johannesburg Luthuli House headquarters.
Continue Reading September 2nd, 2011
Things are shifting in our newspaper world, judging by the latest circulation figures. Most daily newspapers showed serious decline, while weekly papers did better. Afrikaans papers plummeted in circulation, while the isiZulu papers thrived, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures for the second quarter of 2011.
Continue Reading August 31st, 2011
Some of our editors seem determined to be their own worst enemies. The Sowetan, still reeling from the ham-handed way it dealt with the Eric Miyeni controversy, published a front page on Monday which managed to lower the bar on bad taste even further. “Sies” was the headline above pictures of two on-duty law enforcement officers having sex. It was accompanied by a note in which the editors tried to say they felt obliged to splash this on their front page in the public interest.
Continue Reading August 31st, 2011
In 1951, a British mathematician and Quaker pacifist named Lewis Fry Richardson was researching the unlikely question of whether there was a link between the probability of two countries going to war and the length of their common border. He noticed that they often could not even agree on the length of their borders: the Spain-Portugal border was quoted at between 987 and 1214km and the Netherlands-Belgium border at between 380 and 499km. (Public Lecture, University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011)
Continue Reading August 7th, 2011
Eric Miyeni is an irritating distraction. This former columnist has become a leading figure in the attempt to drag our national debate to the lowest depths, to trade in personal abuse and low-level threats imbued with a deep anti-intellectualism.
Continue Reading August 7th, 2011
THESE are glorious days for journalism. We celebrate the end of the Rupert Murdoch era, in which he systematically degraded what we do and wielded a malign influence in London and Washington. His corruptive hold over the British establishment is broken, and this can only lead to a waning of his power and influence in the media world.
Continue Reading July 15th, 2011
Branko Brkic is an editor’s dream and a publisher’s nightmare. He is a groundbreaker in South African publishing. He boldly starts new titles, usually with brilliant content, design and marketing, and charges in headfirst – with admirable courage and independence of spirit.
Continue Reading July 15th, 2011
WHY is Jimmy Manyi trying to steal my job? He is government spokesman, but from everything he says it is clear he really wants to be a media critic. That’s my job. Since he is trying to do my job, I will have a shot at thinking about what I would do if I had his.
Continue Reading June 23rd, 2011
Previous Posts
Anton Harber: Media
Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio
Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)
(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)
“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.
“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report
“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.
Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)
Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011
Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn
Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.
What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)
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)
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