FirstRand seeks Noseweek gag

IFP MP Suzanne Vos has received the go ahead to be given the tape and transcript of businesswoman Gloria Serobe's public interview for an SABC board position, reports TheStar.co.za, but an “opposition proposal in parliament to summon Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad to explain his apparent role in the nomination… of Serobe… was shot down on Tuesday by ruling party MPs”.

Vos is of the opinion that Serobe may have misled the committee in denying that she knew that Pahad's head of ministerial services Louis du Plooy had nominated her.

IOL also reports that on Monday, director-general in the Presidency Frank Chikane expressed concern that the “government's achievements were being lost because of superficial media reporting”, while News24 writes that South African Communist Party secretary general Blade Nzimande said yesterday that “[p]art of the struggle the revolution was facing was to reclaim debate from the media” but that they must also take the blame as “we ourselves have used these papers to try and argue positions defeated in ordinary constitutional structures."

Meanwhile, on a worrying microscopic level considering Pahad's recently voiced personal opinion that perhaps the Government should pull advertising in the Sunday Times in response to the unfavourable coverage of health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Journ.co.za reports that the “Grahamstown municipality is subjecting historic Grocott's Mail to a damaging news and advertising boycott over unhappiness with coverage.” Thoughtleader.co.za also covers this issue in more depth.

For more:

• Business Day: Bank seeks court gag on Noseweek client dossier
  
• Thoughtleader.co.za: From blogger to editor-in-chief

• TheStar.co.za: SABC row: Pahad spared from grilling
  
• IOL: ANC denies interfering in SABC board
  
• IOL: SABC board: Opposition calls for a rerun
  
• Business Day: Why we dare not look away from SABC list fiasco

• IOL: 'The media is about headlines'
  
• News24: 'Reclaim debate from the media'
  
• Journ.co.za: Grahamstown municipality boycotts Grocotts Mail
• Thoughtleader.co.za:The cut-throat method

Also of interest:

• IOL Technology: New AOL service consolidates digital media
  
• Times Online UK: Yahoo tests new social network