SA Rocks

The Times clearly feels as strongly as I do about the Sunday Times Editor saga. So much so that they decided it was necessary, nay, obligatory to track almost every single word being written online about the entire issue.

Jaiku is the platform of choice and #mondli is the channel. This is the sort of stuff that makes me enjoy SA patriotism and commitment to freedom. Freedom of the press, freedom of democracy and freedom of speech.

My advice? Get speaking, voice your opinion, in defence of Manto or Modli Makhanya, I don’t really care, just talk about it and let the nation know what you are thinking.

To make sure that your post is picked up by the Jaiku channel, Justin informs me that you must tag your post with “mondli“.

And if you want to have the feed of posts from the channel on your blog (see my sidebar) then simlpy visit Justin’s post on the topic and use the code that appears.

Here’s to press freedom in a thriving democracy!

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Mondli Makhanya to be arrested, SA democracy under threat

I don’t believe I am understating the title of this post in the slightest.

Sunday brought with it the news that Sunday Times Editor, Mondli Makhayna and journalist Jocelyn Maker face arrest in the coming week. This is shocking and worrisome news to say the very, very least.

It is my personal opinion that when the editor of a newspaper such as Sunday Times can be arrested for printing a story, we need to take a stand as the public.

Mbeki is running riot, he is hiding his agenda’s and promoting a cause that is all of his own. It is partly our fault. Don’t get me wrong, we are the public, they are the government, that is life. I know. But I think that right now we need to make a noise. We need to let it be known that this is not right.

Many people have already spoken out about the situation. Speaking to a friend about it earlies we came to the conclusion that this is a very serious situation. More so, this is very saddening to me. That a man can destroy media freedom with one single action – albeit many actions prior to this one.

In case you did not know, I am a journalist. I hold the media in very, very high regard and especially in regard to democracy and an operational and effective democracy. When the media dies, democracy dies with it. Not slowly but very quickly. If Mondli Makhanya is arrested the media is in trouble. But not bloggers. Not us.

I am blogging about this on SA Rocks because I am not ignorant. I am an intelligent guy and I know when issues are more important than ideals. And the ideal of a Rocking SA could be in jeopardy with the actions of our president this weekend. It will be an interesting week at my place of work I can assure you. We are in for some trying times in the media industry.

I will be following up this post later in the week. If you have anything to say with regard to this specific topic, please contact me or post on this comment. Let’s take a stand. It’s about time.

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