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Major TV shake-up great for consumers

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) There’s a real shake-up of TV coming South Africa’s away – especially of television news – and none of it bodes well for our newspapers.

The SABC launched its 24-hour news operation on the DStv satellite network (on channel 404) last week while the Gupta family – owners of TNA Media, parent company of The New Age newspaper – is getting ready to take their 24/7 news operation live (on channel 405) very soon.

The Guptas’ Africa News Network 7 – or “ANN7” – already has a rather slick-looking beta website up and Atul Gupta has been tweeting recruitment ads

Moegsien Williams Q&A: The New Age business model, the business breakfasts and Helen Zille

by Gill Moodie (@GrubstreetSA) Is The New Age the Great Evil or just another newspaper trying to get off the ground?

Ever since it launched two years ago, controversy has swirled around the paper because its main shareholders – the Gupta family – are close associates with the family of our controversial president, Jacob Zuma.

The paper has always said its intention is to tell the good-news stories of South Africa and give the government credit where it’s due but not to be the mouthpiece of the ruling party.

But its detractors – especially since the latest controversy around parastatal funding for its SABC business breakfasts – say the paper is nothing more than another Citizen of the infamous Info scandal of the 1970s.

Grubstreet interviewed The New Age’s editor, Moegsien Williams, last week to find out more about how The New Age operates, its emerging business model and what kind of paper he wants it to be.

Jerm: neither left-wing nor right-wing but the middle-finger

by Herman Manson (@marklives) When the cup is half full, its hard being a satirist, as Jeremy Nell, who works under the name Jerm, found out.

Nell, until recently the cartoonist for The New Age, had his contract terminated by editor Moegsien Williams because, says Nell, his political cartoons were, according to Williams at least, not “aligned with the paper’s vision and mission.”

The New Age, funded by the politically connected Gupta family, launched “to focus on the positive side of news,” according to its own website, and this has been construed by critics as being pro-government. Williams is the paper’s fourth editor in two years.

Nell says initially news of his effective firing from The New Age didn’t generate much attention from mainstream media (there was quite a bit of outrage in social media circles) until Zapiro took up his cause in a cartoon that takes the mickey out of the New Age editors.

The press muses amusingly

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.

The New Age: not an agent of change

TNA Media has launched the long-awaited, and much-debated, newspaper The New Age. Its front page, its second after the freebie Heritage Day special, reflects editor Henry Jeffreys’ careful juggling act of batting away any criticism that the newspaper is obviously pro-ANC while also creating interest during a rather slow news cycle.

Mercury retrenches third of staff following GCIS move

Media placement house Mercury has had to retrench 10 staff members following a decision by the Government Communication and Information Service (GCIS) to centralise control of Government’s R1.7 billion annual advertising budget (including departmental). The GCIS was a long-standing client of Mercury, which has had considerable success in attracting business from government departments and parastatals over the years.