Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
A group of black journalists has formed a new media investment company in a bid to make inroads in the predominately white industry.
The company, Thinta Media, plans to create business opportunities for black journalists who worked in the media industry in the 1970s and the 1980s.
Thinta Media, which was formally launched last month with modest fanfare, has already engaged a number of major media players in the past few weeks.
Its CEO, Ryland Fisher, former editor of the Cape Times, said the company is exploring the option of securing shares at print and broadcasting media groups. This includes New Africa Investments Limited (Nail), Independent Newspapers and e.tv.
Fisher said he has already had talks with a number of media institutions including Nail, and they have all responded positively to his company. He said the talks with possible partners are still at an early stage.
“We are currently in negotiations with several interested parties and looking at various opportunities in the media field,” Fisher said.
Thinta Media’s backbone consists of four directors, including Fisher.
The others are e.tv’s Joe Thloloe who is chairperson of the company, South African National Editors’ Forum executive director Latiefa Mobara and Rashid Seria, a former editor of South, an alternative newspaper that was published until 1995.
Fisher said the idea to initiate the company was formulated some years ago by the founding members. “We decided to start the company after we realised that, despite our struggle as journalists in the 1980s and 1990s, we had nothing to show financially. We started the company to address that.”
Fisher said the company is not only interested in the commercial side of media operations but also wants to play a role in the country’s broader objective to transform the media industry.
Fisher said major newspaper companies seem to be lagging behind on the issue of black empowerment. He says most are focusing instead on doing their bit for affirmative action.
Real black empowerment, Fisher said, will only happen when substantial shares are vested in black hands. Thinta Media aims to have commercial power in terms of share ownership.
However, Thinta Media will have to get substantial funding to achieve this objective.
Funding, says Fisher, “is not a problem for us”.
“The message we have been getting from most funders has been that if we get a good deal they will definitely give us the funding,” he said, adding that the founder members have already contributed start-up cash.
* Meanwhile, Thabo Mohlala reports that Cyril Madlala will resign as the editor of Independent on Saturday at the end of October.
Madlala is teaming up with Andy Stanton, an independent advertising and marketing director, to resuscitate Uma-Afrika, a newspaper founded in 1928 to cater for a Zulu readership.
Madlala says they “identified a gap in the vernacular market” and in Stanton who has vast experience in marketing and editorial management they form “the kind of a combination we need”.
He says the new initiative ties in with the need to “diversify the media and this will also accommodate the many voices in the country”.
Madlala says he feels confident that the paper will do well in the market as sufficient and thorough market research was done.
And having amassed sufficient experience in journalism and edited the same title in 1988, Madlala is definitely au fait with the terrain he is trekking into.
The ownership of the new company will be a 50-50 split between himself and Stanton.
Uma-Afrika will rival Ilanga, a bi-weekly. Mdalala intends publishing weekly.