“How to Pimp Your Punani”, “School head in muti scare!”, “The Kaalgat Killers!” – these are some of the headlines South Africans wake up to every day. These front pages have readers queuing to get their daily and weekly doses of gossip, sex, scandal and entertainment.
“Yes, some tabloids definitely are getting trashier,” says national editor of Son, Ingo Capraro, “but not Son. We have gone a bit more upmarket with the daily edition.”
In May, the Cape Town-based Daily Voice was reprimanded by the Press Ombudsman for publishing graphic pictures of Goldin and Bloom, a story that made front page news countrywide.
But in Cape Town, the Son, Daily Voice and Die Burger all published pictures of the two friends who were found lying on their stomachs, naked, each with a bullet wounds to the back of the head.
Although complaints were lodged against all three, only the Daily Voice was reprimanded while the complaints against the other two newspapers were dismissed. Die Burger showed a general view of the crime scene with the bodies in the background while the Son showed only their faces and no sign of injury.
In his ruling, the ombudsman said the Daily Voice photographs – which showed the men lying face down, taken from the feet and showing their naked backsides – overstepped the boundaries of decency, were offensive, disrespectful of the dead men, and needlessly added to the trauma of their families and friends.
However, Karl Brophy, executive editor at the Daily Voice disagrees with the ruling.
“Unless the ombudsman has a problem with backsides being displayed— I fail to see his argument.”
He believes the story, headlined “The Kaalgat Killers”, showed how savage killings in South Africa have become.
“It was not even the first time we published photos of dead people. We’ve done that several times before and there were no complaints.”
Brophy says the ombudsman’s ruling only serves to allow those who do not want to face up to the violence in this country “to continue living in a bubble”.
Head of media studies at the University of Witwatersrand, professor Nixon Kariithi, says although tabloids have a specific genre of contents, they “masquerade” as regular media.
He blames mainstream newspapers for shuffling towards tabloids saying this has given that tabloids the platform to now regard themselves as mainstream.
“If mainstream newspapers were proactive, more probing, they would isolate tabloids to where they belong. Tabloids should be seen as ultra-light, which gives them a special place,” says Kariithi.
But Arinaitwe Rugyendo, managing editor of Uganda’s controversial but popular daily tabloid Red Pepper says these publications play an important role in society.
“In Uganda, Red Pepper has assumed the role of ‘Mr. tell it all’. It is the national policeman. There is a belief that what other media ‘fear’ to say, will always find its way into Red Pepper. There is a growing belief that Red Pepper has the most credible information on politics and intelligence.”
Red Pepper launched in 2001 initially as a weekly, then as a bi-weekly before becoming a daily. Its photos of women newsmakers have been described as bordering on pornographic and critics say the paper is contributing to the moral degeneration of society.
But Rugyendo says the paper simply reflects what’s happening on the ground and that its influence is also evident in how it has managed to impact on language.
Red Pepper has introduced new lingua on the streets of Uganda and changed the way teens speak. “Words like ‘Kandahar’, ‘knifing’, ‘babe’, ‘shafting’, have found their way into the serious media as a kind of acceptable Kampala jargon,” says Rugyendo.
“The media somehow has to adapt to this kind of language to speak to the growing teenage population in Uganda.”
The Son‘s Capraro says the mix of Afrikaans and English in his newspaper has made a tremendous contribution to the paper’s success.
“At Son, we have gone further than the dailies: We write exactly the way our readers speak,” he says.
The newspaper adds English words especially when quoting people much to the annoyance of language purists, says Capraro.
“In numerous focus groups participants have told us it is one of the major reasons why they love reading Son.”
Rugyendo says Red Pepper and Son are revolutionary in that they are not “imprisoned by coursework journalism”.
“They are more responsive to reality on the ground than the ‘serious’,” says Rugyendo.
“That way, they have had to revolutionalise journalism in such a sense as taking keen recognition of the fact that outside parliament, politics, economy, there is life elsewhere in Hollywood, at the beaches, in dance halls etc where life has as much socio-economic and political implications for the citizens as say parliament.”
The Daily Voice‘s Brophy points out that British Prime Minister Tony Blair has regular meetings with the editors of The Sun, proving the type of power tabloids have.
“How can you say the Daily Sun, for example, is not mainstream when it is the biggest selling newspaper in the country? The Mail and Guardian is a niche publication, it sells less than we do and is read by a few,” he argues.
“When you look at the fact that the vote of a Daily Sun reader is the same as that of a Mail and Guardian reader, it would make more sense for politicians to try and get the support of Daily Sun readers because the paper is read by 10 times more people than the Mail and Guardian.”
Sunday World editor Phalane Motale says tabloids succeed because they have a formula that works.
He says his paper concentrates on personality-based stories for the news pages, lots of advice in the form of both news and columns inside, entertainment news and sports.
“It is all about keeping the balance between these elements, and keeping focus,” says Motale. “If something doesn’t work, get rid of it. If something works, flog it to work some more!”
But has such success translated into an increase in ad spend? Sunday World editor Abdul Milazi says the last year has seen Sunday World‘s ad spend increase by between 10 and 13 percent.
“This is because advertisers have realised that we hold the so-called ‘Black Diamonds’ who are the new big spenders.”
Red Pepper‘s Rugyendo says tabloids make business sense. As the world becomes more and more capitalistic, tabloids are forcing the more serious media to adapt to the forces of demand and supply.
“In the past, the media was there to serve the government. Today it serves the media moguls.”
On whether we are heading the same route as the British tabloids, Brophy says not anytime soon.
“South Africa is nowhere near British society. This is because South Africa’s democracy is still young, only 11 years old and there are still conservative elements in society. Our liberals are more conservative and think they are the public referee on public democracy,” says Brophy.
“The question should be, if everybody was to go tabloid, who would then remain to man the gates?” asks Kariithi.