It’s comforting to know that South Africa now has a formal, cabinet-approved digital migration policy, and even more so that our digital TV future will be curated by a Digital Dzonga (“digital south”) Advisory Council, drawn from the industry, labour and public, and reporting to the Minister of Communications. The announcement will come as a…
Isn’t it amusing to see the mainstream media and analysts froth about Tito Mboweni’s announcement of a 50 basis point interest rate hike smack, instead of the 200 point hammering he had threatened? Isn’t it obvious that our image-mad money boss had been sabre-rattling to scare the consumer audience that bears the main brunt of…
During my boarding school days, when life in a church-run hostel serving a militarist government school was one of endless authoritarianism, we used to have a stock response to the ludicrous reasonings given for the ludicrous restrictions and punishments foisted upon us: “Do they think we’re thick?” Of course, we had no choice but to…
Is it only me, or has the media’s leverage of technology allowed its coverage of economic news to stagnate? The technology is now available to plug so many automated feeds into tracking of daily market indicators that the people responsible for economic coverage no longer think about what they are reporting. Usually, a sure sign…
Is it only me, or does everyone else get the idea that Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni is adding up the right numbers but getting the wrong answer? Every time the inflation rate rises, he sticks it to the consumer, blaming our spending habits for putting a strain on the economy. His reasoning, that there…
When a 14-year-old Johannesburg schoolgirl’s Facebook account was “broken into” and abusive messages and material sent to friends and family, she was deeply traumatised. But at least, she imagined, Facebook would assist in tracking down the perpetrators. It was not to be. Facebook is easily able to fend off spurious complaints about wasting productive time,…
New statistics show that the big bang of blogging activity that began in South Africa in 2007 has been echoed by the emergence of blogging as a high-profile phenomenon in the rest of Africa. The April-July tipping point in social media in South Africa, chronicled in this blog, also appeared to be the period during…
The South African blogging numbers for 2007 and the beginning of 2008 are in, and they tell a story almost as eloquent as do some of the blogs. Just six months ago, blogging was the next big internet fad in South Africa. Seemingly from nowhere, in the middle of the year, the number of blogs…
One murder is one murder too many, said South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, at Wednesday’s funeral of Sheldon Cohen, who was shot at Balfour Park in Johannesburg on Monday night. In the past year, three of my friends have been killed by criminals. That it is three murders too many is only the beginning…
It may not be a new form of journalism, but it is quickly becoming apparent that interviews with avatars in virtual worlds are going to require a new set of guidelines for journalists. This is one of the first learnings to emerge from an experimental initiative in The Big Change blog. We are conducting business…
