TV owned the 2010 FIFA World Cup. There, I said it. While the Internet increasingly owns breaking news and the various South African news portals came up with numerous strategies for making their world cup content as engaging as possible, it could not even attempt to mimic the vibe of families, friends, even communities, gathering together in the real world in front of TV screens to follow the main matches.
Tag archives: Media
Re-designing news challenges journos, publishers
All The News That’s Fit to Print, to quote the most famous newspaper motto of all time, has of course become less about reams and reams of words stuffed onto cheap paper and more about words and images strategically placed to tell a story in a way that is accessible to readers. Visual journalists like Charles Apple play an increasingly important role as the news industry attempts to increase engagement, with consumers used to sound bites and quick synopses of news as it happens. Their work and strategic importance is already apparent locally in the recent redesigns of South African newspapers Rapport and City Press.
Twitter breaks news, but will it break journalism?
Twitter’s value to breaking news quickly and efficiently is beyond doubt, but the accuracy of the news being reported is far from perfect.
This weekend, Twitter was abuzz with the news that South Africa’s former national police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, was found guilty of both charges he was facing. But the initial buzz on Twitter was wrong, or at least not 100% accurate.
At first it was reported on Twitter that he was found guilty on charges of corruption and obstruction of justice. What happened initially was that journalists reporting from the courthouse got the first tweet wrong, which meant all the retweets got it wrong as well. Later, updates indicated he was found guilty of corruption but not obstruction of justice.
Enjin magazine ISSUE 49
Enjin magazine ISSUE 49. Check it out.
‘Bring me my machine gun’ and other favourites down under
MarkLives recently featured a couple of ads by ad agency FoxP2 that originally ran in 2008 to promote the use of dairy yet still remains eerily relevant (they ‘feature’ both Malema and Mugabe). Here are three more ads, from the same agency but this time for Frisco, that could as well have been made today. One features the prez singing Julius’s favourite song, another feature that word favoured by the ruling party to tar any opposition with and the third celebrates the national treasure we have in Eskom.
Helen Zille hits below the belt
Talk about cheap politicking. The DA must be taking notes from those megawatt bullshitters over at the ANCYL. The media, with some help from the DA, decided that to produce a kid Jacob Zuma had to have had unprotected sex. Hate to break this to you but sometimes condoms break. It happens. Unless Helen Zille, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, happens to be a webcam buddy with either of the two people involved I suspect it is unlikely she should know what really went down. So to speak.
i spy media: The ANC “really deserves to be in power”
The Daily Maverick is turning into a mighty good read. The website, launched by Branko Brkic from Maverick and Empire magazines fame, is fast becoming one of the must read sites in South Africa through its insightful, mostly intelligent and opinionated content.
Only connect.
Loeries 2009: Apocalypse Now? With Loeries 2009 just past Mandy de Waal looks at how digital and mobile technologies are forcing the reinvention of advertising.
Election boost for SA Twitter news feeds
Heightened interest in news around the recent general elections seems to have boosted the fortunes of a number of South African news organisations on Twitter.
Local media channels see healthy Twitter growth
After jumping from the 5th to the 1st spot on Mark’s Twitter News Ranking Index MyNews24 not only maintained its position but grew its number of followers by more than 450. Radio 702 continued its surge up our rankings from 4th position to 2nd place though in terms of the number of followers it’s not yet seriously challenging MyNews24 for the top spot.