By Maeder Osler
‘Community newspapers and community radio stations play a critical role in keeping our people informed. We must therefore recognise that the sustainability of journalism is a matter of public interest. …’ President Cyril Ramaphosa, event commemorating ‘Black Wednesday’, 19 October 2026
As readers might have gleaned by now, Toverview has become a victim of its own (modest) success. Started as a low-level rural blog, we would like to think that it has become a vibrant, entertaining and informative site, spanning an unusual set of interests and issues ranging from our rural to our urban areas – among others, the places where we have lived and worked, and tried to leave an imprint. In the process, it has (inevitably) become more and more expensive to produce.
Until now, Toverview has largely been privately funded, but this is not a sustainable way forward. Readers have responded generously to our requests for donations, but this in itself will also not  ensure our survival. Unless we find a sustainable source of funding – possibly requiring us to adapt our focus as well – we will be forced to close.
All of this has prompted us to think anew about the role of the media in our particular society, and to come to terms with the challenges facing the media sector in general. Specifically, we have begun to learn that we are not alone, and that these issues of sustainability and survival – in one way or another – face the media industry as a whole.
Among others, a recent article by Styli Charalambous, CEO of Daily Maverick, has provided us with important new insights. This, in turn, has led us to the Competition Commission’s report on issues surrounding South African media, notably due to the shift to digital platforms. Like many other initiatives, this report has not received the attention it deserves, and we hope to write about as well.
At risk of oversimplification, the situation is as follows: Traditionally, commercial media, notably newspapers, magazines and so on, have largely relied on advertising revenue, with sales or subscriptions playing an important but far smaller role. In theory, this formula could have continued despite the transition to digital media. However, in the course of the digital transition, advertisers are increasingly bypassing online news media and advertising directly on the internet, notably on social media.
This has caused a funding crisis which affects, one way or another, every private or commercial media group in the country – and beyond. According to Charalambous, it amounts to a ‘fundamental market failure’ which cannot be addressed or remedied by media companies alone, and essentially requires state funding to rectify.
Paywalls, which could loosely be compared to subscriptions, still cannot make up for lost advertising revenue. Interestingly, Charalambous argues against paywalls in any case on the grounds that a country as unequal as South Africa ‘cannot afford an information class system’.
Instead, he says, ‘We need a system that makes it more viable to make more journalism freely accessible to the public, and books more accessible to readers.’ We heartily support this view.
Given all of the above, some reflections follow.
Reading inclusively for meaning
Reading inclusively for meanings, for investments, for jobs, and for improved communications remains an ongoing ideal of both local and cosmopolitan people. For various reasons, including the state of our democracy and the approaching elections, as well as the struggle to find a financial way forward, it seems a good time to think new about the role of vigorous, independent, credible and diverse media, and about investment in its survival.
Among others, communications aimed at inclusion, rather than exclusion, are involved in the many journeys towards democracy – the elusive goal of government for the people, by the people.
Reading for inclusion, rather than the present norm of exclusion, is a dream shared by passionate communicators. They are also embracing the ongoing rollouts of new media technology. With budgeted survival time being limited, I am suggesting a more optimistic view for recoveries, glimpsed from real and imagined waenhuis windows and stoeptalk opportunities as well as folk all around – especially, I like to think, those close to the ground.
Perspectives on local communities, local communications and local media are always worth rediscovering and re-examining (especially given the impending local government elections which are meant to renew the hallowed covenant between government and the people at the grass roots level.)
In few weeks’ time, South African citizens will try once again to procure accountable and transparent governance at the ballot box, having decided or realised that, despite the rather poor results until now, there really isn’t another way forward. This is nothing new – the quest for effective and responsive governance is as old as human history, and seems to remain the unresolved dilemma of societies everywhere.
I would hope that these issues are also being considered by other people on their own stoeps, in the vicinity of the waenhuis and throughout the Grassy Karoo – as well as those in the Kogelberg biosphere down in the Western Cape, where we also spend time nowadays.
This reflection is a further response to the erudite and comprehensive media funding analysis by Daily Maverick’s CEO, Styli Charamboulos, which I wrote about previously. His claim of an inhospitable environment for public interest media sets the scene for an important conversation.
Access to the media – including via the internet, if one can afford it – determines what us story-loving stoeptalk folk can hear, see and read. Most of such folk seem to be by-passed, if not completely ignored. As a result, they have learnt to get on with the uncertainties and opportunities of their own and others’ lives, beyond the worlds described and prescribed by the various media.
Instead, we need to think anew about what comprises good and effective communication at the local level, also effectively linking country and town.
I suspect that most of us continue to ask: Who cares about us, except for the food we need to buy, the services we need to consume, and the shelters we need to buy or rent? Â Instead, we are marginalised, at the mercy of big money.
Communications, media included, largely seem to exclude those who are trying to find work, those trying not to lose their work, and those seeing their talent suffocated. If that is so, no wonder the issues remain reading for meaning, for investment, for jobs, and for inclusive communications.
Among other things, it simply doesn’t make sense that our economy is not growing, and persistently failing to provide jobs for the growing numbers of disillusioned and desperate young people flooding the jobs market.
A new approach
We seem to need a different, more innovative and inclusive, approach to national development, and this goes for the media as well. In fact, it’s fair to say that despite their strengths in some respects, our news media are generally failing to reflect the lived realities of most of our people.
Many of us recognise the value of lively Karoo conversations on Sunday evenings, on carts clattering home in the dark on country roads, under immense Karoo skies. This conversation was only slowly amplified by radio, and eventually by television – provided people could afford television sets at all.
It could be argued that, in their quest for advertising revenue, print media tended to reflect and serve the interests of power elites and big money, rather than the interests of poorer people – and this persists to some degree in respect of digital media as well.
Despite its many flaws and shortcomings, the internet – notably social media – have begun to close this communication gap in some ways. Among others, our esteemed contributors Phakamisa Mayana and Destine Nde have succeeded in reflecting the varied and meaningful roles played by social media in rural settings.
At the same time, social media apparently presents a growing threat to the news media, whether print or digital. This is because, as Charalambous points out, social media have begun to attract a growing proportion of direct online advertisements, even bypassing digital news media.
Paywalls don’t provide much revenue either, and in any case we agree with Charalambous that in a diverse and unequal society like South Africa, which is trying to consolidate a constitutional democracy, we need an ‘information class system’ like a hole in the head.
Recommendations and productive talks
But all is not gloom and doom. While we can’t go into it in any detail here, the Competition Commission has made a series of recommendations aimed at addressing the situation, some of which are already being implemented. Among others, Charalambous mentions productive talks between the media industry and the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), which is responsible for much of government attention to the media sector.
At the same time, there seems to be a lot of life left in local or community media. Among others, many local newspapers – the traditional dorpskoerante — have been revived and revitalised by a new wave of younger journalists. As always, whether print, digital or both, they rely on sales as well as local advertisements, and essentially face the same problems. But they are there, and trying.
This serves to underline the perennial, unchanging, and essential social role of fair, diverse and independent rural media, namely that, just like their urban counterparts, rural people need local media – whether print or digital – to keep them informed about local life, notably performing the vital function of providing news and oversight over local government.
Also, people tend to read their environments in any case, which might again be evident in the outcome of the forthcoming local elections.
Markers of discrimination
While it could be argued that the internet has helped to democratise information in some ways, access to information and the media in places like Colesberg and elsewhere are still largely dictated by the old markers of discrimination and inequality, namely race, class and culture. This needs to change, and independent rural / community media have a vital role to play.
In tandem with this, people need to be functionally literate. Anyone who has followed the mostly dismaying story of South African education will know that achieving this remains a massive challenge.
We will continue to write about these issues, and explore options for survival.
The President’s remarks
A few days ago, on 19 October, President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed senior editors and journalists an an event to commemorate ‘Black Wednesday’ – the day in October 1977 when the National Party government banned The World and Sunday World and numerous other Black Consciousness organisations. An edited extract appears here.
Among other things, he said: ‘We need an ongoing conversation among the media industry, also in government, in business and digital platforms, about how we sustain a diverse and independent media.’
So here’s our contribution: ‘Mr Prez, we’re wondering what’s going to happen to the billions being recovered – or hopefully recovered – from the staggering corruptions, organised mismanagements, deliberate administrative non-spendings and unfilled posts in our sprawling, ‘jobs-for-pals’ public sector, among others by repossessing improperly procured assets such as fleets of flashy cars, extravagant properties, and so on and so forth …
‘Simply stated, if the government is going to support independent and diverse media, what are the chances of some of those repurposed funds being bowled our way? Just asking … ‘
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