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/ 7 November 2007
Self-regulation for newspapers ratcheted up a gear last week with the inaugural meeting of the Press Council in Johannesburg. But the African National Congress (ANC) is also notching up its own pressure on the press. Comprising a panel of citizens and journalists, the Press Council was launched earlier this year to beef up the existing ombudsman in handling complaints about coverage. The system is a kind of fifth estate to check on the fourth.
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/ 10 October 2007
Using words to convey the experience of visiting a photo exhibition means converting the event into a different currency of communication. But the coinage of text can’t recreate the imagery, or evoke the space of a gallery. What it can do is dig into the meaning of the Then & Now exhibition, which opened in Grahamstown last month.
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/ 26 September 2007
Most media captains are tightly focused on their business, meaning that they understandably don’t pay much attention to seemingly obscure stuff outside their silo — for example, the rampaging online social networking among online youth. But some remember that a once-unknown IT business called Google came from nowhere to feast on their erstwhile monopoly of audience time and advertising tribute.
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/ 12 September 2007
There is background to why Dali Mpofu, supremo at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), announced last week that the broadcaster was severing ties with the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef). On the SABC side, the broadcaster’s leadership sees itself as a ”responsible” player in nation-building and promoting the ”national interest”.
At Ibadan Polytechnic in Nigeria, Jonathan Adejunmobi has a hard job teaching journalism. For a start, there’s not even water to flush the toilets. Then, the school he heads has only a pair of ancient computers, and the electricity supply is more off than on. In such conditions, how do his students go on to become journalists for Nigeria’s vibrant media?
Inside every journalist is a novel — which is an excellent place for it to be. This counsel by United Kingdom pressman Russell Lyne is ignored by countless scribes, and not least South African journos. But one who successfully made the journey from journalist to novelist is Peter Temple. He originally worked at the Argus and the former Sunday Express.
A situation out of sync could be remedied this week with the formal launch of the Press Council on Friday. The new body is intended to beef up the role of the press ombudsman — a one-person operation that has dealt with public complaints about newspapers over the past 10 years.
Need a licence to do journalism? Unthinkable in South Africa. But in the past year, Mozambique’s democratic government has suggested exactly this. As you read this, Kenya and Tanzania are seeking to legislate the same. From Senegal to Nigeria, Mali to Ethiopia, the practice is: you want to be a journalist, you register.
It’s been a remarkable turn of the tables as Henry Jeffreys recently notched up one year as the first black editor of Die Burger. The paper historically was at the heart of Afrikaner nationalism. His position at the publication is a measure of the immensity of change in South Africa. So, how has it been working out?
South African newspaper editors came home from Moscow last year all fired up to take their online editions more seriously. They had been delegates to the World Newspaper Congress and become enthused by colleagues from developed countries who could talk about little else.