The new Afrikaans Sunday paper Die Wêreld will not be published on Sunday, a senior staffer said.
”So far, it looks as if Die Wêreld will not be on the shelves this Sunday,” Die Wêreld‘s assistant editor De Wet Potgieter said on Thursday.
According to a statement released by the editorial team, Die Wêreld does not have a ”giant amount” of debt but rather a cash-flow problem.
Staff members’ salaries will be paid shortly.
The paper has faced challenges, the team said, such as disappointing sales in its initial print run in April, a new software programme staff had to become acquainted with quickly, and miscalculations of distributions and street sales.
These are problems that could have been overcome with time, but time is not on its side. Die Wêreld has not closed down and is still looking for people with what it called conviction and financial power to back it.
On Wednesday, Potgieter said the paper is in ”dire straits”, but it still has its full complement of staff, its advertisers are staying on and they are positive about the paper’s future.
Die Wêreld — the first new Afrikaans-language Sunday newspaper to be published in South Africa in 35 years — is edited by Maryna Blomerus.
Blomerus said at a press conference before the paper’s first issue went out in April that it had enough money from its financiers — all South African — to sustain itself for two years.
Die Wêreld would need to sell 40Â 000 to 50Â 000 copies a week to break even, Blomerus said.
According to its management, the paper sold 70Â 000 of the 200Â 000 printed in its first week of publication. eMedia said on Wednesday Blomerus could not explain what happened to the money.
It quoted her as saying: ”You need to ask the guys who did the calculations that question. It looks like they were a little optimistic.”
The paper was reportedly launched with funds from a trust headed by academic Kobus Wolvaardt, who is well known in Afrikaans cultural and political circles.
According to eMedia, Wolvaardt had admitted to staff that the trust had run out of money and could not continue funding the paper. — Sapa