Weekly news watch launches

Clearly in celeb la la land going to jail makes you even more bankable. Go figure.

Real news

In the REAL news, Gordon Brown was elected new British Prime Minister to a welcome of fiery car bombs leading to a stepping up of security alerts in both the UK and US. All this against a backdrop of the wackiest world weather in a while, all put down to global warming. Tony Koenderman, who seemed to be the lone South Africa journo at Cannes this year (as opposed to 37 from Brazil), says campaigns that focused on global warming did well as everyone suddenly seems to have woken up to the fact that this is a serious issue. Even the landscaper at my garden nursery advised me to plant hardy Australian trees and plants as they would need less water in years to come as global warming means less rain… and this in a climate locally where we're being urged to plant indigenous!

In the seemingly more sane (after last week!) world of media, marketing and advertising news, the ban in the UK of smoking in public places is another in a long litany of new regulations warning brands to be more responsible in whom they target and whom they advertise to: watch out for similar laws in South Africa soon on advertising to children – the debate is hotting up amongst local regulatory bodies and will be a fact soon.

Business Day reports this morning that the focus is on consumer confidence and retail credit figures: Consumer confidence likely to have been hit by rates rise. Still on the retail theme, the Sunday Times carried a story that Pick ‘n Pay boss Raymond Ackerman took a public HIV test to do his bit for awareness: Pick 'n Pay boss shows how it's done. In African media news, a newspaper has been banned in Niger for its reporting on rebel attacks, reports IOL: Niger bans paper for 'demoralising troops'. Unfortunately there seem to be more bad news media stories out of African than good news.

And in further industry news: Metro FM DJ Florence Letoaba is have her, er… ‘personal assets' reduced, according to The Times which keeps abreast of serious issues in the radio industry.

Huh?

Headline on IOL this morning: ‘NY bans trans vets in restaurants'. Thing is the story was nothing about vets, trans or otherwise, but about trans fats: “New York has became the first US city to banish trans fats from its restaurants”. Full story ....