Keyword: media

Olivier Serrao: What the Friedrich Ebert Foundation is about in South Africa

Video In his opening remarks at a roundtable discussion on "The Media and Climate Change," Olivier Serrao of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) South Africa Office, talked about the work of the foundation in the country. FES is a private cultural, non-profit political institution committed to the ideas and basic values of a social democracy and the labour movement. The foundation's mission internationally is to promote democracy and social justice through capacity building, policy...

Fazila Farouk: The Poor are Disproportionately Affected by Climate Change

Video Fazila Farouk, executive director of The South African Civil Society Information Service (SACSIS) opened the SACSIS/Friedrich Ebert Stiftung roundtable discussion on "The Media and Climate Change." The event sought to examine how the South African media is reporting on climate change in the run up to COP17, the United Nations climate conference taking place in Durban from 28 November  to 9 December 2011. SACSIS has an interest in how the media reports on critical development...

Murdoch, Mugabe, Malema and the Media

Glenn Ashton - The media will always be a contested space. Some insist there should be no controls over the amorphous beast that is the media; others insist we cannot have a free-for-all. In South Africa we presently walk an uneasy middle road between a free press, a powerful public broadcaster as well as corporate and political oligopolies, which wish to place self-serving limits on our freedom of expression.  The sleazy British phone hacking scandal within the extensive Murdoch media empire poses a...

How Rupert Murdoch Shaped British Politics for 40 Years

Video Rupert Murdoch was in London this week trying to neutralize the cell phone hacking scandal engulfing his media corporation. Following an exposé that journalists from his News of the World newspaper hacked into the cell phone account of a teenage murder victim, amongst others, to embellish media reports, Rupert Murdoch closed down the newspaper. Despite this radical intervention, whether the power of Rupert Murdoch will be touched is another issue all together.  He still the...

The Print Media Transformation Dilemma

Picture: Daniel R. Blume Jane Duncan - The Press Council of South Africa has just completed a series of public hearings into the adequacy of its systems. The hearings were organised in response to the African National Congress’s (ANC) arguments that the Council is biased towards the media, necessitating the establishment of a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT). The ANC also continues to berate the print media for a lack of transformation, and has argued for a Parliamentary hearing on the matter. Much of their ire has...

Trailer: Ethos - A Film about Systemic Change

Video Hosted by twice Oscar nominated actor and activist Woody Harrelson, Ethos is a documentary that lifts the lid on a Pandora's box of systemic issues that guarantee failure in almost every aspect of our lives; from the environment to democracy and our own personal liberty. Ethos examines and  unravels these complex relationships, and offers a solution -- a simple but powerful way for you to change the system. The film includes interviews with notable activists such as Noam Chomsky,...