than anything else in print or online. Is this
truly the original purpose of the press?
Consider the bad vibes business mogul
Khanyi Dhlomo picked up after requesting
a staggering R34mn loan from the National
Empowerment Fund. Widely reported with
almost everyone scrambling to elaborate on
her uber-expensive boutique, Luminance,
and how ridiculous it was. And yet, when
she followed through and paid her debt, the
newsfeeds whimpered in silence.
No appreciation for paying back the loan.
No surrendering to the fact of how ‘bad
girl’ Khanyi actually did something moral
and upstanding. We’re forced to wonder if
anybody even knows about it…
I’m sure the mainstream was hoping she’d
run off to sip cocktails from her Lamborghini
on some ivory beach, swathed by an electric
blue ocean.
“What's the point of
being objective when
you can feed your
w a l l e t i n s t e a d .”
-SARAH HINCLIFF PEARSON
‘If it bleeds, it leads’ is an old mantra
permeating, if not stifling, contemporary
journalism. In other words, anything negative
or ‘bad’ grabs a larger audience. So then,
what’s the point of being objective when you
can feed your wallet instead?
Bringing things back before barreling over
the edge, we should still give thanks to the
media for what it has achieved.
Over the years, the news that journalists
have painstakingly gathered and shared has
proven to be incredibly useful.
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IMBO/ ISSUE 31/ '14