Making the 'newsmaker' of 2009

GUY BERGER - Dec 10 2009 06:33

Not quite "Mickey Mouse", but then again it could be.

As the silly season arrives, media space gets turned over to the "newsmaker of the year". In 2009, there are so many winners out there that the Disney rodent might as well be one.

As evidence that the whole thing is a bit of a joke, the Johannesburg Press Club in 1997 appointed a gorilla called Max as that year's "newsmaker". The primate had tackled a fleeing criminal who had blundered into his cage.

In reality of course, it's not the "newsmakers" themselves who are responsible for "making" the news. It's … none other than the very institutions that trade in the notion of an annual "newsmaker".

Media make the news. And some media institutions then follow up by making the "newsmakers".

While choosing gorilla Max was light-hearted, many other cases are packaged with bogus gravitas and pomp. In definitive tone, the public is advised that persons or issues X have asserted themselves into the awesome status of being the "newsmaker/s" of the year.

The connotation is that a "newsmaker" is an independent force, and that media coverage simply mirrors what's important in the wider society.

But it's a fabrication. Take Joost van der Westhuizen or Tiger Woods. It's media work that turns these achievers into celebrities and follows up with a focus on their misdemeanours.

When last did you hear anything about a netball or hockey star, of their successes or their scandals?

CONTINUES BELOW

Click hereÖ

Yet despite the fact that media houses collectively make the call as to what counts as news, we don't see them being awarded the "newsmaker" accolade.

Instead, the designation is unreflectively presented as a toting up of what has objectively hit the headlines in the given year.

There's a circular referencing going on here, because, of course, those headlines are constructed by the media in the first place.

Yet so self-seriously does the charade get played out, that Pretoria's "National Press Club" says it has registered the title "Newsmaker of the Year" as its private intellectual property.

That step hasn't stopped scores of other media from joining the bandwagon -- even a local newsletter that covers the wine industry has a 2009 "newsmaker".

That the thing is a gimmick is evident from the range of methods that the diverse makers of "newsmakers" draw upon to concoct their grand-sounding conclusions:

The granddaddy of the phenomenon is Time magazine, which bases its decision on the supposedly expert evaluations of its editors.

Even then, there's expedience at work: they avoided alienating audiences by ignoring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the fateful year of 2001.

In fact, the publication's "Person of the Year" declaration is said to have been cooked up in 1927 when a quiet week prompted the staff to create the ruse for a compelling front page.

In South Africa, the National Press Club speculates about what has received the most media coverage and impacted on society over the year. Not surprisingly, its "newsmaker" history includes oddities like the South African Air Force, Big Brother and the Rand.

Website News24 adopts a populist approach. For 2009, its users are being asked to choose a "newsmaker" from options like
Carl Niehaus, the Dalai Lama, Michael Jackson, Caster Semenya, Leonard Chuene, Jonathan Jansen and Joost van der Westhuizen.

What about other names, you may ask? And wasn't there also a certain recession that impacted on one and all, and which should have been in the news?

iAfrica.com measures the most-read stories on its website. This year, its top "newsmaker" spot went to Joost van der Westhuizen. That, of course, says more about what the site's users like to read, than whether that particular "newsmaker" changed the course of history.

A more representative tool was used last year by market research company Monitoring South Africa. It claimed to have surveyed 1,5-million news items from 1 800 media sources.

Although the agency didn't elaborate on its methodology, it conferred the "newsmaker" title on Thabo Mbeki. Why not Kgalema Motlanthe or the victorious Jacob Zuma?

Allowing for nuance, it did provide for a separate category of "Newsmaker Issue of the Year". Here, fraud and corruption claimed the title. Why not poverty and joblessness?

Meanwhile, not fraud, but fraud convict Schabir Shaik, has topped this year's list of the "KZN Newsmakers of the Year" as arranged by the province's Sunday Tribune. Other names in contention there were Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe and city contractor Jay Singh.

If you've never heard of them, don't fret -- you also likely wouldn't know the folk in the 2009 candidate lists of the Daily Dispatch or Grocott's Mail.

Alas for next year, whatever the method used, the device will be a bit less pliable.

Media across the board will emphasise coverage of the World Cup, and it will be hard for makers of "newsmakers" to choose anything else for 2010.

For once, the nomination may just be convincing.

RSS feed for this column: http://www.mg.co.za/rss/guy-berger

TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE

comment guidelines

Please review our comment guidelines
Post your comment in the block below and press "Post as ..."
Please allow between 15 minutes and 48 hours for your comment to go live
Racist, sexist or stupid comments will be terminated with extreme prejudice

blog comments powered by Disqus

Click hereÖ

IN THIS WEEK'S PAPER

SUBSCRIBE:
- Paper edition
- iPad edition (NEW!)
- Kindle edition
- Digital edition

Read stories online

@mailandguardian - Top stories & newsflashes
@NicDawes - M&G editor Nic Dawes
@ChrisRoperZA - Editor, M&G Online
@amabhungane - M&G Centre for Investigative Journ
@mgfeed - Our whole news feed

Making the 'newsmaker' of 2009

IN THIS WEEK'S PAPER

Advertisements

Sponsored links