The Mail & Guardian is now the second-most-cited news source in the country, according to Media Tenor, an international organisation that does research into media content trends.
In its Newsmakers of 2006 report, which examined more than 320 000 news reports from leading South African media, it found that the M&G rose to second place, behind the Sunday Times, after Carte Blanche slipped from the foremost position it had held for the previous six years.
In 2005, the M&G was third on the list.
Richard Kunzmann, a researcher on the report, said the M&G and Sunday Times rose in repute because they ”maintained a steady pace” while Carte Blanche showed a sharp dip in citations.
”These media could expect to see further growth in their reputations, as they become the trusted destinations for groundbreaking news,” Media Tenor said in a statement.
Talking about the M&G‘s prominent position on the list, editor Ferial Haffajee said ”hopefully it is a statement to the integrity of our journalists — that they are trusted”.
Haffajee said that last year’s two main investigations also increased the newspaper’s standing. ”Oilgate and the Jackie Selebi [investigations] became big national stories through which we were the quoted source,” she said.
”We also made an effort to get the country’s leaders to write on our pages, and leaders from civil society, labour and the unions,” she added, saying that when these individuals were quoted in other media, it was often from those pieces published in the M&G.
She said the M&G Online also made a significant contribution. ”Online spreads us globally and nationally. So while [the paper] has a small niche circulation, our impact is greater with online.”
Haffajee said the Sunday Times made the head of the list as it is the ”mother ship of South African readership” that sets the country’s news agenda each week.
The report found former deputy president Jacob Zuma as the public figure with the most media coverage in 2006. He secured even more coverage than President Thabo Mbeki, who had been in the top position for the previous five years.
Cartoonists also took aim at Zuma more than any other public figure. The report found that caricatures of public figures showed a shift in attention towards crime scandals.
The Democratic Alliance’s Tony Leon garnered more media attention after his announcement that he intended leaving his current position as party leader. And Absa was the company the media reported on most, a position it held in 2005.
However, following the Koeberg energy crisis last year, Eskom was the biggest climber on the company list; it made no appearance in 2005, but in 2006 it came in at third.
Eskom secured mostly negative coverage because of the ongoing power failures in 2006. But its unflattering depiction was still better than the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s, which was criticised for its blacklisting of certain commentators and journalists.
Wadim Schreiner, the managing director of Media Tenor, noted that the country’s Afrikaans media were making progress in terms of quality journalism.
”The fact that the Afrikaans media generate most of their own content, coupled with their steady climb in citations from other media, is indicative of innovative and creative journalists driving the reputation of these newspapers,” he said.