SOUTH AFRICA’s media suppresses dissent and drowns out opposing views in a manner that has turned into simple but efficient marketing. While we are constantly told how are opinions are valued, most opinion is formed by a small elite who are given a disproportionate amount of time and space to air their views. Take the gerontocratic journalist Alister Sparks who drives most of the Cape Times op-ed pages, with nobody else in sight except perhaps John Scott who takes the prize for “that funny guy you stopped reading back in 1972”, or eighties columnist and Uncle Tom, Jon Qwelane who has slowly progressed into becoming His Masters Voice, along with the bigotry and audacity of pride needed to expurgate on his views about homosexuality , which he believes is akin to bestiality, and therefore should be outlawed.
The so-called “marketplace of ideas” is really a “cartel of hatred”, pumped out by the O’Reilly marketing machine and former apartheid heavies. A press which cannot be bothered with the truth, is no press at all. Lies are allowed to go unchecked. Blatant fibs stand without correction. South African journalism has reached its lowest ebb, and it is therefore not surprising that readers are turning to the Internet, and blogs like this one, in order to get a more balanced view on subjects which are often completely ignored, or written off as the ravings of a lunatic.
Here are my views on the various titles and channels that claim to represent “the media”
DAILIES
Business Day – a good read if you are a bigoted, monied racist.
Cape Times – we don’t like Jews any more than we have to, in fact if you are a Heimie or a coolie, don’t bother submitting your cv.
The Times – News with all that serious, critical stuff taken out. If it were any less chewier, it would be bubblegum
Sunday Times – weekend entertainment for the whole family, not your family dammit, the other family, you know the one with two cars, a second house and a DSTV decoder.
Sunday Independent – If this is the O’Reilly flagship, then I guess a limp dick on a poop deck surrounded by faggots must be evidence of the ultimate failure to raise circulation which has resulted in the thinnest Sunday paper in SA. compared to the bulging, phallocentric Sunday Times, I would rather gag on the Weekend Argus than shit on a paper nobody can afford.
Weekend Argus (Sunday)- overweight and cluttered with trivia compared to the Times, more influential than the Independent, because, Independent is a vanity read brought to you by people who think Britain is the centre of the universe.
Weekend Argus (Saturday) – budget Saturday paper for people who can’t afford to buy the weekly.
Die Burger – a must if you want to catch up with the Volkstaat, DA politics and believe Zille is God
Daily Voice – gutter journalism at its worst and worser. Independent Groups’ pathetic attempt to cater to a “working class” market under the false impression SA working class can’t spell, have no command of English and are only interested in sex and “Sabela” i.e. prison talk.
Sun/Son – Media24 attempt to milk the working class by offering a slightly classier read than Daily Voice, brought to you by your former jail-keepers, the Apartheid System.
Mail & Guardian – former leftist rag which outgrew its audience by decades, then developed into a ‘whose who’ for Oil Sheik waBenzis before converting to radical armchair Jihadism. Great paper if you need to keep up on the mindless prattle that passes for academia or still think the world can be changed by buying bleach-free toilet paper and supporting the PLO.
TELEVISION
ETV – Rupurt Murdoch’s Trojan Horse, the Fox Network, not too shabby, allows Debra Patta to keep a handy supply of tampons while giving enema’s to her victims.
SABc 1 2 3 – bouquet channels for overweight plebs who haven’t anything better to do than watch daytime soaps, Wielie Walie reruns and old American TV series. Out of date by a decade TV that isn’t any more interesting because its old. The evening viewing isn’t any better, and as for news, switch off before we bore ourselves to tears with ANc infomercials.
DSTV – can’t comment since I never got MNet during the Struggle and now we have democracy, still can’t afford a dish and the subscription to Toss off TV.
RADIO
Heart 104.9 – easy listening for victims of cardiac arrest brought to you by people of colour who wish they were white and whites who wish they were black.
Good Hope FM – its roots in bland, white South Africa, for a time it became hip somewhere over the turn of the Millennium. Last track with its audience when everyone converted to Satellite.
capetalk – meaningless talkshow radio for pensioners, has one or two good programmes on Alzeimhers and Lime disease.
METRO – for loudmouth DJs who wish they were on 5FM
5FM – providing the kind of sound young folk would have listened to in the 90s if they had been born back then. Whatever happened to the sound of today? What, no SA Top Twenty, you kidding me?