South Africa is sorely missing a real journal of opinion, of the ilk of the US’s <i>The Nation</i>. Sean Jacobs looks at the lessons held in the memoirs of <i>The Nation</i>’s publisher, Victor Navasky.
US TV news has a fondness for covering the disappearances of white women, the more attractive and middle-class the better. Sean Jacobs asks what this says about coverage of women in general.
A Latin American regional television news network is due to be launched in Venezuela this month. Sean Jacobs says SABC Africa could learn from the station’s strategy for challenging Western media’s hegemony.
The SABC is in good company when it takes heat for being an ANC instrument. Sean Jacobs writes that public broadcasting in the US is buckling under the weight of Republican influence.
The tightly sealed door between journalism and politics is breaking down in the US, causing discomfort amongst media commentators. Sean Jacobs wonders whether South Africa needs to look at its own revolving door policy.
Local labour voices have moved up from community initiatives to a slot on national SABC station SAfm. Sean Jacobs analyses this development in the context of the relationship between labour unions and media in the US.
Is there a common thread to the recent resignations of SABC chief executive Peter Matlare and FCC chairman Michael Powell? Sean Jacobs draws the parallels?
"Usually I am consumed by what is wrong with US media, but this time around, I thought it might be appropriate to celebrate what is occasionally right with the media here, especially television," writes <i>The Media</i> columnist Sean Jacobs. An HBO show called <i>The Wire</i> is breaking all the rules of TV police drama.
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/ 26 January 2005
The cultural conservatives seem to be winning US media’s "moral wars". They have perfected the art of expressing their displeasure about programming through blast emails and weblogs. Sean Jacobs looks at how the dirty-word police keep films like <i>Saving Private Ryan</i> off the air.
US media coverage of Africa may be scant, shallow and sensationalist, but there’s more to it than racism and lack of interest. Sean Jacobs picks apart the forces at play.