While some would argue that every day is April Fool's day over at the press secretariat of certain youth leagues, the 'general' media only gets one day a year to impress with its unique brand of cynical humour, unless you are planning a move over to the tabloids.
Rival bids for Avusa
The Daily Maverick (DM) and the Gupta's have both emerged with rival bids for Avusa, publishers of the Sunday Times, or as DM puts it the "publisher of everything not owned by Naspers".
"Avusa, with its strong commitment to cutting-edge printed products such as telephone directories is a real treasure. But we're also making this offer because we don't want any political party to have undue influence over a newsroom, and that is what we're afraid may happen if we don't step in. We've never had political interference in a broadcaster or publisher in South Africa, not ever, and we'd like to keep it that way," wrote DM editor Branko Brkic.
The New Age, meanwhile, reported that its owners, the very well-connected Gupta family, is to relaunch the newly bought Sunday Times as 'The New Age Weekender'. The paper reported that "the [Sunday Times] editors were summoned to the Gupta compound in Saxonwold last night, where Cabinet ministers presented them with their story diaries for upcoming issues of the paper." It also announced a new editor for the paper - Mondli Bruce (burn!).
Lots of coffee-splatter
In news that saw lots of coffee-splatter redecorate computer screens MyBroadband broke the news that MWeb is discontinuing its uncapped ADSL offering.
Having pioneered local uncapped broadband at 'affordable' prices, "SEACOM's instability over the last year meant that MWeb had to subsidise its SEACOM bandwidth with more expensive SAT-3 bandwidth for redundancy - a decision which essentially 'broke' MWeb's uncapped ADSL business model," the site explained. Uncapped ADSL customers will be migrated to the new high-end capped ADSL accounts.
Techcentral meanwhile mooted new government legislation that will ban use of cellphones for pregnant women and children under 16. Memeburn reported that Tweeps will be paying Twitter to tweet. The first five tweets of every day will be free; thereafter, users will begin paying on a sliding scale, reports Memeburn.
Staaldraad II
News24 is reporting that Rudolf Straeuli has been recalled to lead Staaldraad II ahead of the 2003 RWC. Former Koevoet commander General Gerhardus "Aard" Vark has also been drafted (ahem) in to oversee Staaldraad II. Springbok coach Peter de Villiers is also promising to participate personally in "certain of the exercises".
In great news for conservationists The Media Online is reporting how ambient advertising comes to the aid of endangered animals. "Embattled game farmers are selling advertising rights on South Africa's big five in a bid to raise money for conservation efforts," the site reports.
Budget airline Kulula has announced that it has become the first African passenger airline to offer a commercial Skywriting service but promised that "the writing phase of the flight will be timed not to coincide with beverage services." Technically, this is not newspaper humour, but as we all know journalists need PR copy to fill up space, so I thought I would add that in (I get paid by the word, folks).
Delays at King Shaka
Writing on a topic Kulula would know a lot about, The Mercury reports that delays of up to three hours can be expected at Durban's King Shaka airport because aircraft noise is harming a nearby roost of swallows. Sculptor Andries Botha has also been commissioned to create a sculpture titled "Spirit of the Swallows", according to the paper. Another statue by Botha, valued at R3 million, was removed last year after the "Zulu Royal Household raised concerns that it was not a true reflection of the Zulu warrior king". That bit, unfortunately, is not an April Fool's joke.
In more commercial news, David Moffatt, MD of HelloComputer, has tweeted the merger of his company with Gloo to form HelloGloo.
Over in the UK, The Independent reported that Portugal has sold football star Ronaldo to Spain for €160 million in a bid to deal with its national debt crisis.
In support of a constitutional monarchy
The Guardian published an editorial in support of a constitutional monarchy and called for succession to pass directly to William.
"As The King's Speech so vividly reminded us, there are times when only the calming leadership of a hereditary monarch will do; and as the MPs' expenses scandal illustrates, it can be dangerous to trust power-hungry elected officials, who lack the security provided by land ownership and immense wealth," the paper wrote, adding that "[w]hen the time comes, we urge Prince Charles to redouble his focus on his important work in the field of alternative medicine, and to pass the mantle of head of state to his son."
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Updated at 12.07pm on 1 April 2011.
