Safe Hands | Blog

Journalism “legals”: when is something in the public interest?

A Mediaonline article published this week does an excellent job of laying out some of the legal considerations governing the publication of sensitive material in South Africa. The article carries interviews with the people involved in looking at the legal ramifications of Jacques Pauw’s book, The President’s Keeper, (one of whom is my sister Gill Moodie) and notes that while something may ordinarily be dangerous to publish, the factor of “public interest” can come into…

Things I learned at Media Indaba Africa 2017

Earlier this year, I attended a South African Freelancers’ Association event addressed by Chris Roper from Code for Africa, where he mentioned the upcoming Media Indaba Africa conference (called Media Party Africa in 2016). I duly filled in the online form for the event and forgot about it. When an email alerted me to the fact that the indaba was to be held in Cape Town in late November, and that it would be free,…

Twitter’s 280-characters just too many? Here’s a way to cope…

I am in two minds about Twitter’s decision to allow 280-character tweets. One the one hand, when only 140 characters were allowed, I often felt that I could do with just an extra few characters to get in an extra hashtag, or a telling phrase. And I think that the imposed brevity meant people often substituted a short hashtag for actual meaning, as seen here: Looking for inspiration during #NaNoWriMo2017? These classic authors have you covered.…

Why some tragedies get a lot of coverage and others don’t

Tragedies in some countries get a lot of media coverage. Some tragedies don’t. Why is that? What gives with journalism?

Why people (even journalists) don’t pay for news – and what to do about it

Journalism battles for revenue as people stop paying.

Who cares about award ceremonies? I do

I recently completed a course in search engine optimisation through GetSmarter, which offers an online platform for short-course training from the University of Cape Town. My statement of results is in, and so is my certificate. My pieces of paper made me happy. As did the 10 weeks of being a student again (one of my most recurring dreams is that of returning to university). I’m a serial over-achiever in exams, motivated to learn and…

What I learned at the MMX17 Conference

In mid-August I spent two days at the Menell Media Exchange Conference in Johannesburg. The meeting, organised by Duke University, aims “to create and support a sustainable and robust media community in South Africa and beyond, through programs, fellowships and conferences”. This year’s event was around the theme of Truth & Trust and is well-documented in stories, videos and podcasts by student journalists covering the event (Friday and Saturday), and I am not going to…