Media News South Africa

Judge rules in favour of Noseweek

NEWSWATCH: Cape High Court Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso, yesterday, Thursday, 20 September 2007, ruled in favour of Noseweek, dismissing with costs FirstRand Bank's application to prevent the title from publishing a list of clients "involved in allegedly shady offshore tax dodging schemes", reports the Mail & Guardian Online. Meanwhile, the Department of Health has taken out an advertisement defending Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in Business Day today, Friday 21 September, which “launches a scathing attack on the judiciary and on the Sunday Times”, reports the business newspaper.

Noseweek editor Martin Weltz will not be publishing details in the October 2007 issue but in later editions, to allow time for more investigation. According to Business Day, “Welz hailed yesterday's judgment as a victory for media freedom and said he hoped this would spur other media which had up until now been intimidated from pursuing the story by the power of the major financial institutions because of threats to their advertising revenue.”

The three-quarter page advert in Business Day consists of two side-by-side letters by head of legal services Sello Ramasala and health department director-general Thami Mseleku.

Meanwhile, the caricaturing of Manto continues, with a cloned profile on Facebook, which includes personal interests such as garlic, lemon and beetroot, and the ability to give her a beetroot and buy her drinks...

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of South Africa rulings this week included ruling against Telkom's "Do Broadband" television and Internet-based advertising campaign (M&G Online; in favour of the controversial NetFlorist's spitting secretary ad for Secretarty's Day; and against a Kulula.com email ad which left out airport charges.

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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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