April 1 in the media world is a bit like casual day at school. Everybody pitches but no-one is really there. That’s because we are all browsing to ‘Net to see which scores got settled, who threw the best punch without anybody really realising that’s what it was, and who should we copy next year this time around.
While some would argue that every day is April Fool’s day over at the press secretariat of certain youth leagues, the ‘general’ media only gets one day a year to impress with its unique brand of cynical humour, unless you are planning a move over to the tabloids.
Rival bids for Avusa
The Daily Maverick (DM) and the Gupta’s have both emerged with rival bids for Avusa, publishers of the Sunday Times, or as DM puts it the “publisher of everything not owned by Naspers”.
“Avusa, with its strong commitment to cutting-edge printed products such as telephone directories is a real treasure. But we’re also making this offer because we don’t want any political party to have undue influence over a newsroom, and that is what we’re afraid may happen if we don’t step in. We’ve never had political interference in a broadcaster or publisher in South Africa, not ever, and we’d like to keep it that way,” wrote DM editor Branko Brkic.
The New Age, meanwhile, reported that its owners, the very well-connected Gupta family, is to relaunch the newly bought Sunday Times as ‘The New Age Weekender’. The paper reported that “the [Sunday Times] editors were summoned to the Gupta compound in Saxonwold last night, where Cabinet ministers presented them with their story diaries for upcoming issues of the paper.” It also announced a new editor for the paper – Mondli Bruce (burn!).
Lots of coffee-splatter
In news that saw lots of coffee-splatter redecorate computer screens MyBroadband broke the news that MWeb is discontinuing its uncapped ADSL offering.
Having pioneered local uncapped broadband at ‘affordable’ prices, “SEACOM’s instability over the last year meant that MWeb had to subsidise its SEACOM bandwidth with more expensive SAT-3 bandwidth for redundancy – a decision which essentially ‘broke’ MWeb’s uncapped ADSL business model,” the site explained. Uncapped ADSL customers will be migrated to the new high-end capped ADSL accounts.
Techcentral meanwhile mooted new government legislation that will ban use of cellphones for pregnant women and children under 16. Memeburn reported that Tweeps will be paying Twitter to tweet. The first five tweets of every day will be free; thereafter, users will begin paying on a sliding scale, reports Memeburn.
Staaldraad II
News24 is reporting that Rudolf Straeuli has been recalled to lead Staaldraad II ahead of the 2003 RWC. Former Koevoet commander General Gerhardus “Aard” Vark has also been drafted (ahem) in to oversee Staaldraad II. Springbok coach Peter de Villiers is also promising to participate personally in “certain of the exercises”.
In great news for conservationists The Media Online is reporting how ambient advertising comes to the aid of endangered animals. “Embattled game farmers are selling advertising rights on South Africa’s big five in a bid to raise money for conservation efforts,” the site reports.
Budget airline Kulula has announced that it has become the first African passenger airline to offer a commercial Skywriting service but promised that “the writing phase of the flight will be timed not to coincide with beverage services.” Technically, this is not newspaper humour, but as we all know journalists need PR copy to fill up space, so I thought I would add that in (I get paid by the word, folks).
Delays at King Shaka
Writing on a topic Kulula would know a lot about, The Mercury reports that delays of up to three hours can be expected at Durban’s King Shaka airport because aircraft noise is harming a nearby roost of swallows. Sculptor Andries Botha has also been commissioned to create a sculpture titled “Spirit of the Swallows”, according to the paper. Another statue by Botha, valued at R3 million, was removed last year after the “Zulu Royal Household raised concerns that it was not a true reflection of the Zulu warrior king”. That bit, unfortunately, is not an April Fool’s joke.
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