SA's top Twittering editors

Encouragingly, many of SA's news editors are already active on Twitter, although there are still several who are noticeably absent. It is also worth noting that the past couple of weeks have seen huge editorship changes in the SA media, including those at Rapport, Beeld, Finweek and now Sowetan and Daily Dispatch.

Top of the list

At the top of the list of active editors (by follower numbers) is City Press's Ferial Haffajee (@ferialhaffajee), with more than 10 000 followers. City Press's recent allegations of a secret Julius Malema trust fund no doubt boosted her follower numbers, as did her very public spat with (now former) Sowetan columnist Eric Miyeni.

Close behind Haffajee is the Mail & Guardian's Nic Dawes (@NicDawes), with more than 9000 followers. Dawes is more active on Twitter than Haffajee, ahead by about 3000 tweets.

In third place is Sunday Times editor Ray Hartley (@hartleyr), with just over 4200 followers. Hartley started tweeting on 21 August 2007, though, way before both Dawes (1 June 2009) and Haffajee (21 November 2009).

At the other end of the scale, editors who have not yet joined the fray include the editors of Sowetan, Business Report, Cape Times, Die Burger and The Herald.

The active list

Missing in action

Notes:

*This list includes Brendan Boyle (@TimesLIVEpols as the editor of the Daily Dispatch, even though he only took up that post this week as a result of the Haffajee/Miyeni spat. He is, however, an active Twitter user and therefore could be expected to take his followers with him to the Dispatch.

**Liza Albrecht (@LizaAlbrecht) is included, as she was only replaced by Bokkie Gerber as editor of Rapport at the start of August 2011. Gerber appears to now have a Twitter account (@bokkie_gerber) but had tweeted just once at the time of writing.

• Amended from original blog post, with permission, published on 4 August 2011.