Rage Against The Machine. (File photo)
Despite never having listened to any of their music, the name of the band Rage Against the Machine has always appealed to me. Particularly the “rage” bit. And particularly at this juncture in my career as a member of the Mail & Guardian’s production department.
Unfortunately “rage against the seemingly inevitable death of newspapers” just isn’t as catchy as the original. But this is the reality that I have been refusing to acknowledge for a number of years now.
My days are numbered. At the age of 64 and with many years of uninhibited alcohol consumption, enthusiastic smoking of (now almost legal) substances and dabbling in an assortment of mind-bending chemicals, this should come as no surprise.
But it is the imminent death of my newspaper career that is my real concern. Having a job in the media industry, especially print, is about as secure as a white rhino whose job it is to provide photo opportunities for tourists while avoiding the attentions of poachers lurking in the bush of the Kruger National Park. My job is becoming obsolete and soon my taxidermied head will appear in a display of species that no longer exist, perhaps between the panda and the penguin.
Newspapers are just not an essential part of people’s lives anymore. Online news has been touted as the alternative but not enough people are prepared to pay for this service. A single sentence of no more than 20 words that is for free on a phone is all that many people want.
Those 20 words can be full of ill-informed opinions and complete fabrication, but what does it matter when the next day that will be overtaken by a whole new flood of nonsense?
But I have gone too far. It is safer when venturing into the world ruled by Donald Trump’s “tech bros” to leave the expressing of strong opinions to a fictional character.
South African police detective Benny Griessel is the protagonist in a great series of novels by South Africa’s foremost crime writer, Deon Meyer.
Griessel’s partner (against crime) is the quintessential Kapenaar Vaughn Cupido, who in the latest instalment, Leo, says: “Partner, opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one. And they usually stink. The only difference now, with social media, is that we all have to smell it together. Welcome to Selfie City, we’re dinosaurs, let’s just suck it up.”
From this it is obvious where my “rage” should be directed. The vast majority of the world’s population that has lost the habit of buying newspapers sounds like an easy target. But this just leaves one feeling like a dolphin trying to pick out a single sardine from the shoals that swim up the KwaZulu-Natal coast in winter.
A far easier target is the embattled media owners and managers who, for years, have clung to the belief that digital is the future while the neglected print publications continue to provide much-needed income through advertising, even though the sales figures continue to plummet.
My rage bubbles on, and all I can do is continue doing what I know and love the best: making the pages of the newspaper look as good as possible using the stories, pictures and graphics provided by the shrinking but dedicated and talented team of M&G staff members.
The highlight of the week is finding the right combination of words and images to make the front page as exciting and enticing as possible. In this, my second stint at the M&G, I have been responsible for designing the front page since 2010.
Fortunately this coincided with Jacob Zuma’s rise to prominence and infamy. He was the gift that keeps on giving for newspaper headline writers and page designers.
One of my all-time favourites is the front page in the week that Zuma was finally carted off to prison. A perfect combination of cheeky headline and cracking illustration from resident cartoonist Carlos Amato.
Whatever skills I have in this job come from that inscrutable master of newspaper design, Irwin Manoim. As co-founding editor of the Mail & Guardian, he was responsible for many iconic front pages that reflected the most turbulent and pivotal period in the country’s history.
One of the most memorable was the “Save the Wail” front page. What the Weekly Mail, as it was then known, needed saving from was the brutal crackdown including media censorship of 1986.
Nothing can compare to the scary, violent, exhilarating times of the 1980s, but the present circumstances are certainly alarming and threatening to the existence of the M&G, so sometimes it is tempting to revisit the Save the Wail theme.
In the meantime with salary increases a dim memory, drastically reduced capacity and comrades falling all around us, the hardy fools in the media everywhere carry on. Just as the M&G soldiers on.
And at the end of another exhausting, stressful week we can say: “The Mail & Guardian is still a newspaper.”
Christian Stephen is the production editor of the Mail & Guardian.