news – praag.org

Zim state broadcaster fires hundreds

Zimbabwe’s state broadcaster said on Thursday it has laid off nearly 300 workers as it battles financial woes.

The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) board of directors has “so far terminated the contracts of some 282 staff members on three months’ notice”, chairman Fidelis Munyoro said in a statement.

It said the ZBC had decided to streamline certain operations to try to steer the national broadcaster towards “viable business-focused and results-based activities”.

A journalist at the broadcaster, which has been failing to pay staff salaries, confirmed the layoffs.

“We have been told it is ongoing so even those who have not received the letters are not sure whether their jobs are secure or not,” the journalist told AFP, requesting anonymity.

The ZBC joins several companies that have laid off workers after a Supreme Court ruling last month that allowed employers to dismiss workers after giving three months’ notice.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions staged protests in the capital Harare last week over the dismissals.

Zimbabwe’s economy has been in a downward spiral for more than a decade following President Robert Mugabe’s land reforms, which broke the country’s agricultural backbone.

Source: AFP

Only 2% of young Americans trust media

The dead wood media limps in dead last among institutions younger voters trust to “do the right thing,” according to a new and massive Harvard University survey.

In the school’s Institute of Politics poll of over 3,000 18-29-year-olds, a tiny 12 percent said they believe the do the right thing. A whopping 88 percent said “sometimes” or “never.” Just 2 percent said they trusted the media to do the right thing “all of the time,” and 39 percent said “never.”

The poll is the latest nail in the media’s coffin, a downward spiral that has resulted in fewer younger Americans reading traditional media and especially traditional platforms such as newspapers and magazines.

Source: Washington Examiner

SABC scraps Afrikaans for minority killer language

The SABC will do away with Afrikaans news bulletins on its 24 hour news channel on DStv.

Black indigenous South African language bulletins, including Zulu, Siswati, Tsonga, Xhosa, isiNdebele, Sotho and Venda will also be scrapped.

As from April 1, all bulletins will be done in English.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago says the decision was informed by the fact that the channel has to compete with other international English language channels.

Kganyago maintains that the channel “lost viewers each time indigenous language news bulletins were aired”, but satellite competitors StarSat and OpenView HD don’t have any local news channels.

Some SABC TV news bulletins in other languages actually grab a larger slice of the audience than the flagship.

The news in isiZulu on SABC1 commands a staggering average of 3.6 million viewers, while the isiXhosa news, also on SABC1, pulls in 3.4 million people. The Afrikaans news has more than 1.5 million viewers.

The one-size-fits-all approach that South Africans are now stuck with, is really only for the benefit of the tiniest minority of English speakers, a clear indication of the killer language at work once more.

Meanwhile the wage bill of the SABC is set to soar by close to R100 million. The increase is a result of bigger board member fees, salaries and filled vacancies.

The increase comes in the wake of a strained economic climate, less advertising spending and a drop in viewers.

Rag withdraws from Press Ombudsman

The New Age, a government-funded propaganda spout, has decided to withdraw from the Press Ombudsman process according to an opposition party.

The opposition complained about a front page article on February 2 2015, headlined “DA sees conspiracies where there are none”, in which Communications Minister Faith Muthambi defended the government’s advertising in the newspaper.

The party said that The New Age was getting a “disproportionate” amount of government advertising expenditure and complained to the Press Ombudsman.

The CEO of The New Age, Nazeem Howa, wrote to the Ombudsman on 25 February to ‘confirm the withdrawal of The New Age from the Press Ombudsman processes’.

It appears that, to avoid the embarrassment of apologising and retracting the story, The New Age decided to withdraw from the Ombudsman process.

The party claimed that The New Age was considering the appointment of its own ombudsman to deal with complaints against the publication.

CNN withdraws from Russia

CNN International withdraws from Russian cable networks from December 31, 2014, according to a letter from Turner Broadcasting System Europe (CNN owner) TASS learnt about on Monday.

CNN is broadcast by operators of paid cable and satellite television, including Akado, Vimpelcom, NTV+, and others.

A copy of the letter available to TASS notifies Russian paid TV operators that Turner stops broadcasting CNN International in Russia from December 31, 2014. No reasons behind the move are provided.

Turner Broadcasting System’s director general in the CIS, Tatiana Kalita, refused to comment.

Akado and Vimpelcom confirmed they had received such a notification. “Yes, we have received such notification. We hope next year the channel will be back in Russia,” Vimpelcom’s press service said.

SAPA flush with anti-white vitriol

SAPA, the South African Press Association, is bent on anti-white propaganda, it appears. A steady stream of misleading information flows freely from most of its press reports on the ailing health of Mandela.

Here are some of the snippets from SAPA that indicate that the Association is less concerned with news than it is with spreading naked anti-white vitriol. These SAPA reports were written by one Shabtai Gold.

The most recent report includes this gem: “His lungs were damaged during his imprisonment for 27 years under the white-minority regime.”

Mandela, however, lived to be 94 on a continent where the median age is 38 for African men.

Earlier we were treated to this: “Mandela was kept in prison for 27 years by white racist regime”. Mandela was actually in prison for inciting violence, armed struggle and high treason.

The then premier, PW Botha repeatedly stated that he would pardon Mandela if he agreed to a peacefully negotiated settlement.

Mandela plotted instead with fellow communists to violently overthrow the government. Remember the Cold War?

A while ago SAPA reported that “Mandela’s eyes were damaged during his 27 years of imprisonment on Robben island.” But at the ripe old age of 94 Mandela still does not wear glasses.

Nuus24 to close its doors

Naspers owned online news publisher, 24.com has decided to disband its Afrikaans Nuus24 channel.

The group said in a statement on Tuesday (11 June) that while Nuus24 has generated “excellent engagement” for its audiences and advertisers, “the team believe that they cannot scale the operation to the same levels as News24″.

Nuus24 hosts Afrikaans newspaper websites for Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad, thus making News24/Nuus24 the largest supplier of Afrikaans news content.

Jannie Momberg, editor of News24 and Nuus24 said: “We do still believe Afrikaans speaking consumers need and deserve to get the latest breaking news, information and entertainment on any device. We believe that these features and services will be provided by the digital arms of South Africa’s three top Afrikaans newspapers: Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad.”

As of 1 July, Nuus24 said that consumers will be redirected to the most relevant web property where they will receive the same fast breaking news that they have come to enjoy on Nuus24.

“Management would like to assure advertisers that all campaigns booked via The SpaceStation up to and including 30 June 2013 will be honoured. Thereafter all future campaign enquiries can be directed to Ads24,” the company said.

In April, Afrikaans newspaper titles Beeld, Volksblad, and Die Burger all took the decision to run the gauntlet by adopting a paywall system.

All three titles, which function under the Naspers brand, announced separately that they would be adopting a digital first method of operation, breaking news online, and charging a fee for accessing their content.

Drone media?

Here comes the fly-by media. Preliminary use of diminutive drones is under way among those who see the potential of drones in news gathering, not to mention invasive “gotcha”-style journalism. Deadline Detroit — “a homegrown media revolution” manned by former veteran journalists — has already used footage made by “Tretch5000,” an anonymous hobbyist who used a camera-mounted drone to peek inside abandoned housing and old civic buildings, producing a telling video vignette.

“There’s a part of me that finds this kind of creepy and fraught with ‘big brother is watching’ issues. While we might trust public radio journalists and academics, there were rumors earlier this week that TMZ had purchased a drone to assist in its paparazzi-style coverage of celebrities,” says Vince Duffy, chairman of the Radio Television Digital News Association.

“But why wouldn’t they get one? Could websites that cover celebrities resist the urge to fly drones over celebrity weddings, outdoor red carpets, and beaches where starlets might be caught topless?” Mr. Duffy asks.

The University of Missouri has awarded a $25,000 grant to public radio station KBIA to explore drone journalism in places “reporters can’t go or reach,” while the University of Nebraska has won $50,000 from the Knight Foundation for a new Drone Journalism Lab.Mr. Duffy points out that the Federal Aviation Administration requires unmanned aircraft systems to be within the operator’s line of sight, cruise below 400 feet during daylight hours and avoid airports, among other things.

“Journalism organizations would certainly have many reasons to fly drones far from the person controlling it, or on some type of preprogrammed autopilot course,” Mr. Duffy says. “The FAA is looking into how it can regulate the coming ‘drone age’ safely. They expect to have new rules by 2015. The ethical issues for using drones for journalism will probably be up in the air much after that.” – Washington Times