Small charges, big profits
Racism is more fun when your own race doesn’t stand accused.
Courtesy of local elections to come, some of us have been glued to screens and newspapers as accusations of overt and more obvious racism evolve. There can be little else that raises the ire of South Africans more than racism and yet most of us harbour some form of guilt about firing or speaking harshly to someone of another race.
The only time I remember it getting really out of hand was when Eugene Terblanche was killed; for a moment then I felt real fear.
And if you are following stories of this nature, Twitter and Facebook are apparently the places to be, although my preference is for news rather than public comment on it. In a world of opinions, I deem mine as good as many and I read in order to form one.
There can be little as frustrating as going into a news’ website and finding that the particular story you want to read is blocked because you are not a subscriber.
‘Quite right,’ I hear the media types echo. ‘You pay and we’ll even deliver it to your door’.
Although I have fond memories of the days when I spread my favourite Sunday newspaper all over my bed and indulged from page one until the end, it became thicker and thicker and full of so much tripe that I couldn’t be bothered to read it all. Some weeks I was still ploughing through it the following Friday, determined to get my outdated money’s worth as the price rose steadily.
Considering my position (knees curled around my ears), I threw out all the bits that didn’t interest me. I don’t like crosswords, most lifestyle writing (whose lifestyle are they talking about anyway?) or the job sections. Some speciality supplements bore me to death and the heaps of advertising I can well do without.
Metro sections are invariably colour coded. In Gauteng they’re ‘black’ news, in KZN, ‘Indian’ and I suppose in Cape Town, ‘Coloured’. Why this news is not considered pertinent to other races raises a question: if general gossip, is it really pertinent to anyone? And why would anyone buy a newspaper just for its metro section?
News that is worthy, is worthy for all and I find the racial connotations irritating.
I now read papers via computer, which is already generally considered way behind the times.
One of today’s major conundrums is how to make online media pay. All over the world, publications are fretting that they cannot afford to pay journalists and photographers decent prices to contribute to their websites. Advertising is hard to come by and the cost of website upkeep is an added extra.
Yet they keep on printing their monthly, weekly or daily issues to sell on the street.
When e-mail and the Internet began edging their way into our lives much was trumpeted about a paperless world. Today, all our service providers brag about how much paper they’re saving by e-mailing invoices and statements to us instead of posting them.
Frankly, they are the only ones saving. In companies all over South Africa (and probably the world) eager little beavers reach their desks each morning and begin the process of downloading their private mail. Once that’s done, they decide which paperwork they want in hard copy and print dozens of pages out on the office printer.
If you don’t believe this, you haven’t worked for a large company since the workers were allocated PCs. Stand around the average office printer for ten minutes and it will spew forth anything from bank and medical aid statements to Googled information for little darlings’ school projects.
No wonder inflation is so rife! The consumers pay for the office paper and ink cartridges as well as company shrinkage programmes. Shouldn’t employees cover those costs from their salaries?
In fact, the only people I know who still want their paperwork posted are freelancers, who count the cost of additional not-for-work printing, but need paperwork in case of tax queries.
Why the media have not yet found the answer to their Internet quandary surprises me.
The sector has, historically, made bold moves. It was newspapers who initially brought in DTP (desktop publishing) and managed, at a click of the proverbial mouse, to put thousands of printing union workers (such as typographers, photo-lithographers and compositors) out of work.
Why don’t they now just eliminate their printers, printing presses and paper altogether? Perhaps not overnight. After all, in South Africa we must take into consideration those who cannot afford Internet access...the same who are extremely unlikely to be regular subscribers to many newspapers.
Of course, it’s easy to read a newspaper in a bus or on a train, but many find it just as easy to access the Internet via their mobiles, so laptops and PCs are not as necessary as once they were. Those who don’t have computers are often those who are less terrified of accessing their mobiles in public due to the high crime rate. They seldom consider themselves prime targets.
But to get back to charging for Internet browsing of your favourite publication...has anyone yet tried asking its reading public to subscribe to only those stories it wants to read? I seldom read every story I could find on a site; I only read breaking news, a few blogs and those articles I haven’t found elsewhere. Locally, a dozen sites every day will carry the identical Sapa story, so a lot of duplication automatically follows.
If a website were prepared to show me all the blurbs free (as they already do), it could tickle me into reading articles at a price per article. For instance, if I registered my credit or debit card and was billed 75 cents per story I opened up, as an avid reader I might spend R5.25 without a qualm. I might also be keen to return to the same site daily.
Were I to subscribe to a magazine, it is more likely that I would want to read this month’s issue from cover to cover, but not all at once. A story a day might do me. By the end of the month I could easily have bought almost every article in the issue at a reasonable price.
And the magazine could have earned from my reading exactly what it would have from a printed issue; without the cost of art directors, paper, printing and distribution. That that wouldn’t do the job market much good is little different to what DTP did to it.
And it’s too late for the media to develop a conscience now.
I wouldn’t be forced to buy the stories I don’t want or drag all that waste paper down to the recycling depot; sheer bliss!
Just as the same vehicle goes through a tollgate several times a month and charges to the driver’s credit or debit card accumulate, so website reading fees could accumulate. This isn’t rocket science and I am only a basic blonde, so I have no doubt that publishers worldwide have a thousand reasons why it cannot be done. But I don’t know them, so please explain?
I do, now, feel real fear about the way government is walking roughshod over the people it serves, whatever their race.
I’m beginning to wonder whether small business stands a chance and how many times the constitution can stand molestation and outright abuse before we all feel obliged to stand up and be counted.
When Johannesburg erupted over its billing debacle a couple of weeks ago, I realised that until a majority of South Africans of all races feel so strongly about one thing that they all rise together, government will be in the rand seats in more ways than one.
I’m not aiming for satire when I say that in my opinion, whites are sometimes too polite, they grumble continually; Indians still feel some loyalty to the ANC so they just whinge; Coloureds, capable of quite the most brilliant turn of phrase, sit on the fence complaining surreptitiously and blacks just give bad governance far too much slack for their own good.
Oh! And I believe generalisations, like comparisons, are odious!
That’s my opinion, of course and it needn’t be yours. But where there’s a meeting of minds, race is completely unimportant. It’s all too seldom that white South Africans aren’t in the thick of race rows, so last week’s debacles were such a relief!
Studio M’s bottom line: All this Gupta-Zuma jnr. business got me thinking about JZ ordering a fleet of seven luxury cars to transport his entire family around while in Durban. I immediately thought he might be planning to take the whole shebang on the campaign trail with him, but rumour has it he’s just acquired another little holiday nook hereabouts. When some of those wives and children earn independent incomes, is the state still required to fund free travel (Zuma jnr and the poppie in Isidingo, for instance). Surely they should buy their own airline tickets and drive/hire their own vehicles?
Mo 
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