Joe Ma... newsman on a mission

South Africa, 2006. The country is in turmoil. Old presidents, musicians and nice people are dropping like flies. Crooked cops, dirty businessmen and merciless peace keepers run amok. Reality TV has reached new lows. Steve Irwin is dead. How much longer can this anarchy continue?

Enter Ma.

"I have made a commitment to the people of this great land, I will tell them what's really going on. It may look like I'm not always right, but I don't shy away from mistakes, I embrace them, I owe the people of this country that," promises the hardened news anchor.

"Too often, we've accepted what we're told by the mouthpieces of the state, that must end. It's time you got the whole truth and made up your own mind. Question everything and everyone all the time. I have to, that's how my news maintains a high standard."

We live in a country where the news can either chill your very bones or make you laugh until your body performs inappropriate functions in public. Only you can decide whether to laugh or cry.

"We're doing this to get the truth out there," says Ma, "We've realised that if you're getting your news from the television or the paper, you're eating from the poison bowl; even the radio is under the control of the authorities and we can't afford to put the truth in the hands of Government, that would be disastrous. If you subscribe to our service, you'll be joining a few thousand people who actually know what's really going on."

The brainchild of John Vlismas and Duncan Harling, JMSN is a two-minute news satire delivered twice a week, available by texting JMSN to 31990 at R2.50 per episode. JMSN is already enjoyed by thousands of people every week via www.kungfone.com. A hundred and twenty episodes have already been produced and heard by thousands of people both locally and abroad.

In the words of Ma: "If you don't laugh; you're already dead, and dead people can't cry, or laugh or do anything, because they're dead."