In the week that a South African journalist was fired for moaning about his employer on a competitor’s website, the Los Angeles Times launched a spectacular new blog, called the Readers’ Representative Journal. It is a thing of beauty, I tell ya. Clear, lovely and as well put together as only an American news organisation…
Newspapers often get it wrong. These days, journalism faces as much of a threat from a lack of credibility as it does from a digital transformation. And, frankly, the way South African news operations handle their errors creates a gap of trust between them and their readers. Take the Sunday Times‘s recent story about Christine…
I have written for newspapers. But, apart from the (very occasional) story that made it to the front page, I can’t recall the same frisson of excitement I feel when I submit a blog posting. Ridiculous, really. Print journalists write for huge audiences: the Sunday Times has more than 3,6-million readers. One of its top…
I’m beginning to think there’s something in the water at the SABC. Statements by Dali Mpofu, the chief executive and, ahem, editor-in-chief, make me wonder if it’s not lead. Mpofu’s latest letter breaking up with the South African National Editors’ Forum is a lesson in how to write with drama, emotion, exaggeration and delusion. So…
It’s Sunday. And there’s something wrong. Very wrong. I’ve got my coffee, my newspaper and the couch all to myself. But where the hell is the New York Times supplement? They’ve moved it to the Times … on a Friday. You have got to be kidding me. This means that only Sunday Times subscribers who…
