While delivering a talk on the ‘Challenges of Producing the Sunday Newspaper' in the ongoing Highway Africa Conference, Lizeka Mda of the City Press, one of South Africa's Sunday newspapers, said most of the Sunday publications lack the necessary support to improve their content.
She said Sunday papers are short of resources, making it very difficult to compete with television, Internet, radio and cellphone networks among other forms of media available on Sundays.
Mda said lack of budget has for a long time hampered efforts by most Sunday newspapers to recruit seasoned and skilled journalists.
“Budget is a big issue, when you talk to the management [all] that you get is frustrations; they talk of the budget having been done early in the year and allocations made a long time ago. So you are not able to get a writer you would wish to work with,” said Mda.
She added: “Even paying journalists a well-deserved salary is a big issue, we are not able to afford certain journalists who in my opinion are some of the finest in the country; we just lack enough resources.”
Concurring with Mda, Jovial Rantao, the Sunday Independent editor, noted that financial resource is a key element in competitions.
“We also do lack resources, I have only five reporters but I would wish to have as many as 10 in the newsroom,” said Rantao.
“There is television, radio, Internet and many other forms of news sources; the reader has to play around with his time and choose from a variety what to read,” said Rantao.
He also noted that calls for the Sunday newspapers to set the news agenda for the coming weeks remains a challenge as well.
“The challenge is to produce stories that grab attention of your audience and keep them off other forms of media on Sunday,” said Rantao.
Source: HANA www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za
• For more from Highway Africa, go to our blog:
