Media News South Africa

Busy few days for the media

NEWSWATCH: It has certainly been a busy few days for the media. The Mail & Guardian Online reports that yesterday, Monday, 23 July 2007, the Competition Tribunal granted Caxton leave to participate in the Naspers/EMN/SuperSport merger procedures, subject to certain conditions and that the SABC launched its international news channel on Friday, 20 July, amidst further furore over its editorial bias.

The Mail & Guardian also denied on Friday “disregarding an interdict barring it from publishing the details of a draft internal report into alleged abuse of power at the SABC”, which, according to the Sunday Times on Sunday 22 July, was that SABC boss Dali Mpofu had not yet suspended SABC legal head Mafika Sihlali, whom he hired, after being in advised in April to do so after an internal audit on irregular spending. The Sunday Times also reported that hi-tech surveillance led to the weekend arrest of the suspected prostitute blogger “who caused a scandal by naming male South African celebrities as his clients”.

And on the radio side, not only has DJ Bob Mabena retired from DJing to concentrate on being executive manager of public commercial radio at the SABC (see The Times), YFM programme manager Bondo Ntuli has become “the umpteenth person to quit the troubled Gauteng youth station that has been plagued by mass resignations of its top staff, including DJs, reporters and marketing personnel”, according to City Press.

About Simone Puterman

Simone Puterman (@SimoneAtLarge) is currently editor-at-large at Marklives.com and deputy chair of the Sanef online editors subcommittee. After majoring in psychology and linguistics at Rhodes University, and then completing her honours in psychology, she has been in the world of B2B publishing since 1997, with 7.5 year stints at both WriteStuff Publishing and Bizcommunity.com (March 2006-August 2013). Email her at moc.sevilkram@enomis.
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