Malema-mayhem coverage belongs to Twitter

click to enlarge

The "Harber" mentioned is Prof Anton Harber, head of Wits University's journalism school. The prof is right, of course, and there is no better demonstration of this shift than in yesterday's media coverage of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema's supporters running amok in Joburg. (Lucky for the Sunday Times as the mayhem quickly distracted media luvvies from the ridicule the paper came in for after its Facebook splash of the past weekend.)

Big breaking stories belong to TV, radio and online

We already know that big breaking stories, such as what went down in downtown Joburg on Tuesday, belong to TV, radio and online. And, indeed, eNews came out tops on the day with its excellent running coverage of the mayhem while SABC TV steadfastly refused to break away from its normal programming to cover the extraordinary scenes around Luthuli House, the ANC's headquarters.

Of the radio coverage I caught, the SABC's SAfm seemed to be doing a fine job, as did Primedia's 567 CapeTalk, which I assume was very similar to its Johannesburg sister station, Talk Radio 702.

When it came to the websites of the major news portals, News24, Times Live, IOL, the Mail & Guardian and Eye WitnessNews all seemed to recognise that, in today's world, even websites cannot compete with Twitter.

All had stories and pictures up timeously, moving as fast as they could, though I noted that News24 seemed to be first to get a good picture gallery up and also had a nifty interactive street map of Joburg that displayed geographically mapped tweets. [DISCLOSURE: The map was knocked together quickly on the day by this writer's husband, Andrew Trench, the head of Media24 investigations.]

Another online winner

Another online winner - and I'm sure it got loads of action judging by Twitter mentions - was Zoopy's very funny spoof video of Malema wanting to "nationalise the Twitter". Jason Elk, head of Zoopy - South Africa's homegrown version of YouTube which has morphed into providing mobile TV news and entertainment - told Bizcommunity that the vid was pre-planned, which shows fantastic forethought.

But, really, the day belonged to Twitter, the now-ubiquitous social network, and by Tuesday afternoon the hashtags "#ANCYL", "#Malema" and "#LuthuliHouse" were all trending in SA. At one stage - round about lunch time as the crowds swelled around Luthuli House - the tweets using these hashtags were coming in so fast on TweetDeck that I could hardly keep up.

Of the Twitter streams I kept an eye on, I'd say the Daily Maverick's Phillip de Wet (@phillipdewet), the Mail & Guardian @mailandguardian) and Eyewitness News (@ewnreporter) did the best jobs in capturing the mood and happenings of the fast-moving scenes in Beyers Naude Square and outside Luthuli House.

A wonderful medium for journalists

A hundred and forty characters are a wonderful medium for journalists on the scene of a big event. Consider this string of tweets from De Wet for capturing the explosive atmosphere of yesterday morning (the most recent first):

• "Confrontations on at least two fronts right now. Fragmented crowd, still moving quickly. And getting angrier.
  
• "Helicopter overhead as Luthuli House security lowers their own barricades. It increasingly seems like a besieged fortress.
  
• "Police are retreating, crowd is testing them on multiple fronts. I wouldn't bet against an invasion of Luthuli House today.
  
• "Part of the crowd is targetting the eTV outside broadcast van, threatening to burn it. They're retreating. R4.5m in hardware, after all."

The most amazing thing about Twitter is that you can follow multiple people (through hashtags or lists) simultaneously, affording you a veritable prism of views and experiences of the same event. In the space of about five minutes, for instance, these three completely different tweets came in from three Joburgers (Twitter handles underlined) who were downtown yesterday morning - one ambling past the protestors, one in an office in town and another two from one of the protestors:

• timmmy: "Just took a stroll past Luthuli House, seems pretty quiet. As many cops as there are bored under 35 year olds #Malema"
  
• simonmorema: "Half of my office is gone. I suspect they at #Malema."
  
• JustBeatENT: "In town right now and [f*ck] no one can stop malema from being loved....."
  
• JustBeatENT: "Malema is so loved I just saw a bra being thrown on the floor...#FOK"

This truly is news in Technicolor. It's not just the immediacy that is so incredible but Twitter gives us a bigger, fuller picture - random and chaotic - more akin to real life than that which any one journalist, observing and digesting, can give you.

Lastly, for mirth and merriment (and often keen insight), there is little to beat Twitter as 140 characters is made for the pithy among us. These were some favourites:

• Max du Preez (columnist and author): "No, the ANC shouldn't eat its own children. But a whack on the bottom might work wonders."

• Brett Horner (Sunday Times journalist): "eTV reporter at Malema hearing: 'Journalists have been stoned all morning.' That would explain all the smoke then."
  
• Ranjeni Munusamy (former Sunday Times journalist): "SABC not broadcasting live on #Malema cos all their reporters are off tailing the President, Dep President, ministers etc on foreign travels", and
  
• TannieEvita (Evita Bezuidenhout/satirist Pieter Dirk-Uys): "Malema anarchy or Zuma paralysis. Is there no third choice to save the day?"

As for the day after - when the newspapers came out - the prevailing wisdom is that it's madness to do a traditional hard-news treatment of the big event as most of your readers have seen or heard it all already. Taking quite a quick look at the newspapers I laid my hands on in Cape Town this fine Wednesday morning:

1. Of the serious papers, I'd say The New Age, The Times, Die Burger and Business Day got it right. All made attempts - and I think The New Age was best - to take the news further (not easy with such an event when the coverage is wall-to-wall). All had interesting and varied packages, with good opinion and analysis to go with it. The Cape Times was the least interesting and least reflective.
   
2. The country's biggest paper, the Daily Sun tabloid, played it in a straight hard-news fashion with a dramatic front-page picture and the headline: "MALEMA MOB MADNESS". There was only one story inside and, interestingly because the Daily Sun understands its market, it editorialised by branding the Malema supporters "HOOLIGANS" in the inside headline.
   
3. The major Afrikaans tabloid, Son, led with a story on more horrific bus accidents to follow the recent Knysna one, giving over half of its front page to the Malema story. There was quite a small story on the Joburg mayhem on Page 2.
   
4. The Daily Voice, that Cape Town tabloid that marches to its own drum, ignored the Malema story completely on its front page and led with a dramatic crime story (headline: "THE TIKKOP WHO STOLE EID"). You had to go all the way to Page 9 to find a straight news story on the Joburg protests. True to its quirky form, however, the paper also ran a competition on the same page whereby you could win R200 of air time if you came up with the funniest thought bubble for a priest praying over Malema's head in a picture. "WIN R200 AIRTIME AT JUJU'S EXPENSE", says the headline and with this totally irreverent tone, the paper may well have pitched itself just right for its readers.
   

For more:

• Bizcommunity:Doth media maketh Malema? by Chris Moerdyk, 30 August 2011
  
• Bizcommunity: Whitewashing the news? by Angelo Coppola, 30 August 2011
  
• Bizcommunity: Election coverage shows SABC's stunning lack of sophistication by Gill Moodie, 19 May 2011

See also:

• SANEF: SANEF statement on attacks on journalists: Attacks on journalists to be deplored, Sanef calls for restraint
  
• National Press Club: Condemnation of aggression and incidents of violence against journalists

• Cape Town Press Club: Cape Town Press Club condemns attacks on media at marches in JHB city centre