Whitfield takes 'early retirement'

(Image extracted from the Sanef website

For more:

• Mail & Guardian: Independent's Chris Whitfield takes early retirement... According to the Mail & Guardian report, Whitfield has confirmed he had taken an early retirement from the Independent News and Media group South Africa (INMSA). However, he is also reported as refusing to give further details, saying that the matter is "delicate and we are still working out details".

  But he's been in the position of group executive in charge of launching new regional and national titles barely a month - and was also editing the Cape Times for a while after the "removal" of Alide Dasnois as editor of the newspaper and prior to Gasant Abarder's appointment to the position. Abarder's appointment in turn led to reports that media company Primedia was mulling its legal options over his sudden departure: it claimed at the time he had absconded from his position as news editor at Eye Witness News.

  The question some people might now be asking, however, is why has Whitfield taken early retirement and why is the matter "delicate"? One trusts there is nothing in it more than meets the eye, but given Dasnois' abrupt departure (with a couple of differing reasons being given for that move) and the rowdy disruption of a R2K silent protest (in support of Dasnois) by a formerly unknown organisation called the Movement for Transformation of Media in SA and it's no wonder people and organisations such as Sanef and R2K might not be a little inquisitive...

  As Alice in Wonderland might agree, this all seems to be "curiouser and curiouser."