source Anthony Heard GEORGE heard covered Parliament for the Rand Daily Mail. He published a remarkably accurate account of the national Budget two days before it was delivered. I have never been able to find out from whom George got the information, although I have suspicions. The forecast was too accurate to have been totally […]

Two key media figures are at each other’s throats prior to the truth commission’s probe into the press, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy The Freedom of Expression Institute and its chair, Raymond Louw, have come under fire for volunteering to assist the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in its investigation of the media. The Black Editors Forum […]

A senior South African journalist tells the story of how, as a young reporter in the apartheid era, he was delegated to act as a guide to Eartha Kitt, showing her around Cape Town. The reporter (white) was sitting in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car with the great singer, lecturing her on the […]

DESIGN: Hazel Friedman THE undisputed winner of the Mail & Guardian’s Not the Pirelli Calendar Prize for 1997 is the calendar put out by the women’s support group, Powa (People Opposing Women Abuse). A collaborative project between the organisation and the Fine Arts Department at the University of the Witwatersrand, the calendarconsists of provocative images […]

The Dolphin Group has put together a deal that not only includes Mpumalanga’s prime resorts, but could also be at public expense, reports Justin Arenstein The Mpumalanga government has handed over its main natural assets to an unknown foreign company and has promised not to talk about the deal for 50 years. The contract which […]

Joseph Hanlon PEACE has not brought prosperity to Mozambique. Four years after the end of the civil war, the poorest country in the world is growing poorer. The reason is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has ruled that annual inflation must be brought below 15%t before there can be significant post-war reconstruction. This policy […]

cricket: Jon Swift South African cricketers can truly be said to be in the process of charting new waters. To understand this, what goes on behind the scenes must be considered. The most public changes are in personnel at national and provincial levels. Less obvious are the growth of the development programme and the ongoing […]

With much change occurring in the print industry, editors have been playing the game of job-swapping, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy Nineteen-ninety-six was the year of musical chairs in the media – particularly in the print media, where editors changed jobs in double-quick time. The game began in March when the then-Cape Argus newspaper’s long-serving editor, Andrew […]

We asked a host of South African writers, most of whom had a new book out in 1996, what their favourite book of the year was Andre Brink, author of Imaginings of Sand: I have no hesitation in nominating as my book of the year the novel Self-Portrait with Woman by the Polish Andrzej Szczypiorski […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy IN its report last month, the task group on government communications (Comtask), set up by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, urged government departments to improve relations with the media and ensure speedy responses to queries. I can assure you that the Media Mad column, which appears regularly on the Antenna pages, received no speedy […]