"Everywhere else in the world, where television is an entertainment and information medium, ratings and adspend work hand-in hand." The revolution will not be televised- locally. Andy Davis looks at youth television and finds that adpsend patterns are way behind emerging culture.
Business acumen and shrewd editorial insight on black tabloids have combined to pioneer new markets. Graeme Addison looks at how the daily newspaper scene is opening hidden facets of South African life.
Whether the news bosses admit it or not, the public can still see the egg on their faces from that week in January. Except for one television station, media were united by their brazen ignorance of rape case sensitivities. Kevin Bloom reports.
When a magazine publishes a top 10 list it’s a given that some readers will get annoyed. Some may even express their annoyance in a letter. We’ll justify our list as best we can, fully acknowledging your right to get annoyed.
"What do you think happens to the corpses of dead dogs and cats? You think they get buried? Burned? How about ‘rendered’, which is a nice way of saying ‘melted down’, and then sold as beef by-products. Now ready to be put into (hopefully) only pet food, and then eaten again. Smacks of Mad Cow Disease to me", writes Ian Fraser.
It may not have had the size or cachet of the World Social Forum held earlier this year, but the recent biennial conference of the World Alliance for Citizen Participation (Civicus) also threw a spotlight on the role — and effectiveness — of civil society. Civicus pledges to maintain good relations with governments while fighting for human rights.
Beginning life as a suggestion of the Task Group on Government Communications (Comtask) in 1996, the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) has inspired its share of cynical comment — and not just because it took more than seven years for Comtask’s idea to be implemented. The cynics have another argument: there have been similar initiatives in the past, and they have failed.
Most parties have not given much prominence to environmental issues, focusing instead on jobs and crime. Yet we are already seeing the first frightening heralds of climate change, caused by excessive greenhouse-gas emissions. This could mean crop failure and famine in Southern Africa in the near future. Are any of our politicians paying attention?
Sister Jeanette Joubert has spent the past 23 years driving distances of up to 3 000km a month to reach patients in the harsh, dry conditions of the North West. It is no easy job providing basic health-care services in a province where 65% of the more than three million inhabitants live in rural areas. In the second in our series on the state of health systems in the provinces, we look at the North West.
By this time next week, the African National Congress will be headed for its third term in office and there it will stay until the "Second Coming", if an exuberant Deputy President Jacob Zuma is to be believed. But, in vibrant democracies, regular and constitutional changes of government are vital. Waiting for Jesus is not an option; the ANC should serve time on the opposition benches in future.