"We needed it [this fund] back in 2002," said Gugulethu Moyo, new director of the Media Legal Defence Initiative, referring to the Mugabe government's suppression of the Daily News eight years back.
The company owning the paper still sat with...
No one has come out shining in the mud-slinging around the SABC, but the biggest loser is the autonomy of communications.
This has been paralleled by a similar song-and-dance in parliament, in regard to the broadcasting regulator, the Independent ...
The shockwaves of collapsing newspapers in the US have startled everyone around the world, not least the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
It's a body which represents some 600 000 media staffers across 120 countries. Or so it di...
The crisis of the US newspaper industry is what broadcasters are going to experience. Plunging audiences and collapsing advertising revenues. And it's also coming to South Africa.
That's the prognosis of Wits digital arts professor Christo Doherty...
With the rise of the Zuma era, the SABC board has decided to ditch Snuki Zikalala as head of news. At the same time, the board itself faces the strong likelihood of being ditched. Parliament has been itching to oust it ever since Thabo Mbeki was topp...
For months, SABC’s Interface programme called on viewers to vote in an SMS poll. The results were then delivered by the presenter during the show, in percentages -- like “40% agree with the statement, and 60% disagree”.
Whether a particular...
Transformation of African state-owned broadcasters into proper public-service institutions has come to a standstill.
For instance, Zambia’s progressive laws passed in 2002 have yet to be implemented. In role-model South Africa, the crisis aroun...
Our eyes and ears are attentive to the mainstream media as the most influential platform in the coming elections. But it's also important that there are also many other smaller players adding to the diversity of coverage.
Some of these enterpr...
Over ten years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) convened hearings into the role of the media in relation to the gross violation of human rights that happened under apartheid.
But one sector that seemed to escape the TRC’s att...
The country’s visual conscience corrected his balance with his revised cartoon on Sunday that switched the Jacob Zuma rape of justice image, with members of the Thabo Mbeki camp. Both, according to his accompanying caption, are valid.
I analysed...
Guy Berger is a media academic/activist. He writes a fortnightly column at www.mg.co.za/converse and is active in the South African National Editors' Forum. He also blogs about teaching journalism and new media. Find his research online. and micro-blogging from conferences at http://www.twitter.com/guyberger
