South Africa: ‘The New Age’ hits the print market

A new daily publication, The New Age was launched on 22 June 2010 in Johannesburg. Former minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said, the paper will be critical but constructive, it will gather reports and news from the nine (9) provinces of the country which most newspapers don’t do. Adding that the newspaper will cover the good stories coming out of provinces that had been painted by the media as having no stability and lack of service delivery.

It will be a 32-page newspaper broadsheet with an initial daily print of 170 000 copies, sold at R3.50 starting mid-September 2010 and will seek to tell the story of South Africa from an angle of a “half-full-glass” than “half-empty” - as other publications currently do, said the newspaper editor, Vuyo Mvoko.

Bennett Colemen &Co Ltd will publish the paper, which also publishes The Times of India, funded by the Gupta Group which has close links to the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

BACKGROUND

The New Age will be owned by the African National Congress (ANC) and is set to go public in September 2010. The publication will be funded by the Gupta Group which is closely linked to the party president Jacob Zuma and the ANC.

Essop Pahad whose magazine is also bankrolled by the Guptas, is one of the people behind the newspaper and former Business Day journalist Vuyo Mvoko is expected as editor of the paper.

Meanwhile Pahad earlier covered up for ANC by saying the newspaper  “is not and will not be affiliated to the ANC”. However the ANC has made no secrete of its dissatisfaction with the media and its belief that media companies are unfairly critical of it. At its Polokwane conference in 2007 it emerged that an ANC-aligned newspaper was needed, but the biggest obstacle has been to find a financier. //End//

- July 23, 2010 by IFEX

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Source: www.misa.org  (received via email alert on 26.07.2010)