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Analysis of and commentary on South African politics from a liberal perspective.

Tag: Peter Bruce

The media’s short-sighted hostility to the DA’s 2009 ‘Stop Zuma’ campaign


I am going to try and post to Inside Politics more often. One way of doing that, relatively easily for me, is to post some of the many archives I have produced over the years, perhaps with a bit of analysis upfront. Here follows an example: a collection of quotes from the commentariat on the DA’s 2009 ‘Stop Zuma’ posters, which were widely derided as evidence of fearmongering, poor strategy and the unfair personalisation of the election. With the benefit of hindsight, of course, the campaign and the message were clearly both important and prescient. The DA’s message is often overlooked in favour of such considerations as style and tone. Nothing makes the case better than the story of the ‘Stop Zuma’ posters.

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Trevor Manuel and the ghost between the lines


FEATURE: Trevor Manuel, like Thabo Mbeki before him, is no stranger to mispresentation in order to try and make his point. In 2009 he took issue with a number of critics who suggested that Springbok coach Pieter de Villiers was not up to the job, acussing them, effectively, of racism. On one such occassion he responded to Business Day editor Peter Bruce with an argument that not only warped what Bruce had actually said, but contradicted his previous position in doing so. In the article below I tried to set out why his argument was both flawed and devious.

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SA Journalism: Prizes for everyone


FEATURE: Yet another round of South African journalism awards has just passed. Did you know there are some 82 of them? That’s an awards ceremony every four and a half days. Is South African journalism really such a worthy recipient of so much self-reflecting praise? Look at the Fourth Estate more closely and it seems rife with problems. But it would be you alone looking, certainly the mainstream media, despite so many protestations about its import and the value of self-regulation, is the last institution to cast a critical gaze over its own condition. But with so many awards on offer, why would it? Not when it can rather remind itself every few days just how excellent it truly is.

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Zero Worship


FEATURE: The manic adulation heaped unthinkingly on all our Olympians seems to have died down somewhat. And the events at Lonmin Mine adjusted our reaction to the endlessly repeated refrain that the Olympics ‘united’ us as a nation. So, perhaps now is as good a time as any to ask: did we really do that well at the Olympics? Is six medals the epitome of excellence or have we settled for mediocrity? In the article below, I argue South Africans seriously needs to readjust their expectations if we want to succeed and stop celebrating the average.

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