The dismissal of Mathatha Tsedu as editor of the <i>Sunday Times</i> raises questions not just about transformation of the media, but about transformation of South African society. The two are interlinked, because the media is its own social institution as much as it has an institutional role which impacts on all other social institutions, writes Tawana Kupe.
Do women have a future in the newsrooms, or should they simply resign themselves to playing second fiddle? Lack of experience in editing and managing a newspaper hasn’t stood in the way of the appointment of males as editors. Bongiwe Mlangeni looks at gender politics on South Africa’s newspapers.
The uptake of customised marketing packages favours electronic media, says Harry Herber. Which is one reason television will grab the big revenue in 2004. Television, where adflation is minimal, is very buoyant and has huge scope.
"On a recent visit to South Africa, I was accosted by a fellow columnist who demanded to know why the American media have not mounted a more forceful challenge to the radical policies of the Bush administration". How broken is the US administration’s media smokescreen? Tim Spira thinks President Bush should start reading his nation’s newspapers.
Leading ANC intellectual and former Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting in Mandela’s cabinet, Dr. Z. Pallo Jordan, evaluates local media ten years into democracy. Have free market principles delivered the goods? Has the SABC overcome its apartheid legacy? Are we adequately reflecting the two nations in our one country?
For a variety of ideological reasons, it’s not good form to give over the writing of one’s lead story to a member of parliament from the ruling party. Unless, of course, that parliamentarian’s autonomy of mind is substantiated more by documented history than subjective rhetoric.
"My attention was drawn to a rather feeble piece of invective that appeared in a recent <i>Finance Week</i>’s Piker column. It suggested that I was in no position to mount an ethical high horse concerning the behaviour of other journalists because my own reputation was severely blemished." There’s not much David Bullard can do about the attacks on his integrity — except maybe use his own space to hit back.
The Anti-Terrorism Bill has been passed under a new name and will probably become law before the end of 2003. Karen Willenberg expands on a potentially hazardous legislative process that has been ignored by the media.
From what has otherwise been a dark and difficult week, Roy Clarke has gleaned some reasons to be cheerful. On Monday, the 62-year-old’s name was splashed across the Zambian <i>Daily Mail</i> in a headline that must have puzzled its readers: "Roy Clarke to Be Deported."
A Kenyan judge ordered the government and the East African country’s oldest and largest Aids orphanage Wednesday to try to work out a deal to get primary schools to admit children in infected with HIV, the virus that causes Aids.