Transparency clears the thinking!
Many years ago, when I was relatively inexperienced in being a manager, a rather attractive young woman with an impressive CV came into my office for a job
interview.
Aakash Bramdeo is a former colleague from e.tv news who moved on to the SABC before being offered the editorship of Post in Durban — which was the newspaper which published my first story back in 1980. Before accepting the job, Aakash picked my brain as to what he could do to make the paper relevant to a wider readership. "Get a columnist who reflects the audience you're trying to attract," I said.
Shortly after accepting the position of editor, Aakash called me and asked, "when can you start?"
"View from the Top" ran in Post every week from 1 May 2011 to 9 April 2014 (which coincided with Aakash's departure from Post to edit the Sunday Tribune).
Many years ago, when I was relatively inexperienced in being a manager, a rather attractive young woman with an impressive CV came into my office for a job
interview.
Gauteng Economic Development MEC Nkosiphendule Kolisile was a rarity among our ruling politicians in that he was respected by his party and the opposition alike.
As the 1970s were drawing to a close, much of the evening news on television in our country was devoted to the rapidly evolving situation in Rhodesia.
Over the weekend, a Sunday Times report said government has agreed to pay out more than R1-billion to settle a land claim against the five-star Mala Mala reserve in Mpumalanga.
Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube, Hunter S Thompson wrote.
With the collapse of the Roman Empire around the 5th century AD, western Europe entered a period of stagnation lasting almost a millennium – now referred to as the Middle Ages.
The first peach blossoms of the year are coruscant in my garden. They brought to mind Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s words:
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
“Journalists acquire special status in our society on account of the Constitutional right to exchange information and the right to freedom of expression and the right to publish.
“However, if they could bypass the unlawful acquisition of information by saying that the information they published was not from the tainted source, but information that was confirmed by persons other than the tainted source, one would in effect be allowing journalists to taint society as a whole, for it is to society that journalists must be answerable.”
Put your hand up if you think Barack Obama is going to bomb Syria any time now. And put the other hand up if you think this is a bad idea.
There was a bit of a light bulb moment for me at one of the lecture halls here at the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam yesterday. It went like this.
One of the presenters asked the packed hall, “How many of you watch TV?” Most people raised a hand.