Journalists frequently fall into the trap of writing too much about their own profession. It is, therefore, with some reluctance that we return to the subject, specifically by drawing attention to a column written in the latest edition of the Financial Mail by Joe Thloloe, headed “Motshekga and the media” — referring to the Mail […]

Jos Havermans Despite the turmoil in the world’s stock markets, it seems almost every country in the world — even the poorest — wants to have its own stock exchange. And Malawi, one of the world’s 15 least developed countries, is no exception. After a three-year apprenticeship period, the Malawi Stock Exchange is poised to […]

Martin Kettle in New York When a songwriter is as good and as famous as Paul Simon then, from one way of looking at it, he has nothing left to prove for the rest of his life. But when, like Simon, you cut your first record at 16, are a superstar at 26, and have […]

Andrew Worsdale The first South African “movie” was produced in 1896, 10 years before Hollywood even kicked off the ground. Edgar Hyman simply filmed scenes of Johannesburg and President Kruger and showed the film at Oom Paul’s home in 1899. In 1916 Harold Shaw wrote and directed the first local epic De Voortrekkers. He was […]

set It took 15 minutes to expose a wannabe legend of her time as merely a legend in her own mind, reports Hazel Friedman A pseudo-American accent, liberal dropping of Hollywood’s hottest names, a surplus of arrogance and extreme delusions of grandeur. That was all it took for con- artist Tracey Morrison to infiltrate the […]

Ann Eveleth Aruling by a Pretoria judge last week effectively makes University of Cape Town vice-chancellor Mamphela Ramphele’s old school imaginary. Judge Ben du Plessis decided that Stephanus Hofmeyer Farm School near Kranspoort in Northern Province did not exist as a legal entity at the time its staff and pupils were evicted because its governing […]

Martin Walker in Brussels A surreal war has broken out in Belgium as veterans of a revolutionary art movement rally against an arts festival in honour of the surrealist master René Magritte. The retrospective, to mark his centenary, is being billed by others as the biggest cultural event in Europe this year. The Belgian state […]

Madeleine Wackernagel He’s not exactly Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch, but William Kirsh (36) is certainly following the global trend. This week’s announcement that Primedia, a listed company worth R2,5-billion, is forming separate music and film divisions is another step to realising his ambition of becoming South Africa’s own media mogul. The rationale is simple: […]

Angella Johnson Mouths gaping in shock, Bongani Ngubeni and Mpho Lebese stared at their faces on the front page of the newspaper. “Missing children: Muti-killings of 13 children feared”, screamed the headline. The boys, who live within metres of each other, were idly playing in the street, unaware that a massive police hunt had been […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) begins its launch conference outside Johannesburg today with the finger of President Nelson Mandela wagging over it. At the ANC’s conference in December, Mandela accused black editors of being the hand-maidens of white owners and newspapers in the main of a lack of balanced […]