The government spent R140 000 on a glossy new magazine — and closed it after the first edition,
writes Bronwen Jones
THE government-run South African Communication Service (Sacs) is facing a dramatic reshuffle of resources as its chic, sleek, new magazine Women Today bit the dust upon
With severe understaffing and a battle underway between print, video and audio, Sacs is steaming into a high-tech future seemingly regardless of whether or not its audience can keep up with it: or whether or not its 473 staff members support the move.
Newspapers, says an insider, are old hat “because hardly anyone out there can read”. And glossy magazines are out for good.
Which makes it all the more curious that more than R140 000 was spent on Women Today before this became obvious.
Early this year Sacs’ research directorate looked at the feasibility of the new magazine. It organised 36 group discussions across the country, from cities to deep countryside. The resulting report said: “The majority of groups felt that a government-run magazine would be biased and is therefore a bad idea.”
The only chance to put across information on topics like the RDP was if it was “creatively combined with traditional entertainment and home-maker oriented material”.
In short, if the government printed recipes and advice on a more exciting sex life, there could be a market.
Despite acrimony between journalists and researchers, plans to produce the magazine continued. Ten thousand copies of the first issue were printed and the next two were well under way.
The pretty pink invitations to the launch were sent out. And then the blunt cancellation by fax “owing to unforeseen circumstances”.
Women Today’s largest audience included 4390 NGOs, 996 women’s organisations, and 357 Parliamentarians. But spending government money on publications seemed better directed at free country-wide newspapers. Six were developed with print runs of up to 150 000 per title.
Distribution was difficult, the text tended towards turgid (like government press releases stitched together) but they performed a useful function. Until now.
David Venter, head of Sacs, will not confirm that the papers are to close. He simply explains that there are X staff, X rands, and “If you have to cut circulation to 25 000 copies of a paper, that makes almost no impression on the, say, 6- million or more people in the Eastern Cape”.
The alternative strategy — which is hard to imagine reaching 25 000 people in each region – – is a “communication carnival”.
Last month saw Sacs’ first roadshow. Called Mohlolo (Northern Sotho for magic), it took to the highways with uncommon joie de vivre, transporting videos and quiz shows to a rural community in the far north. The people of G- Seleka were told the meaning of Masekhane and the RDP. Chief directors gave speeches and those who could remember what they said won
People were photographed placing a cardboard brick upon a cardboard wall. They will be given the photos made into calendars. Finally Sacs took videos of the whole event to play back to colleagues in Pretoria.
Sacs has established an RDP video unit which will bring RDP information from the government to the grassroots and take the grassroots opinions back to government.
The running cost of a team of a dozen people is estimated at R835 300 a year, including dubbing into 11 languages. The figures are hard to tally with earlier expenditure.
Final video, including personnel, costs Sacs R663 a minute, which would price the 14 400 minutes of video documenting the Transitional Executive Council’s activities last year at some
But, points out Sacs head David Venter: “This is the most successful of our user-pay schemes. Other departments are meant to pay for what we
No one wants to pay for Sacs newspapers or Women Today. As government publications they are not allowed to carry advertising, or if they did, they must not compete with the private sector. This ties Sacs into an impossible knot.
Somehow its R54-million annual budget just doesn’t go far enough. Venter said: “It has grown on average by 0.4 percent a year, while inflation has averaged 10 percent. R34-million of the budget is now spent on staff, leaving us R20-million to operate with. There are 105 job vacancies, of which we’re allowed to fill 48.”