2.4: Newspapers

Due to the success of printing presses, newspapers started to develop. Newspapers serve as the chronicle of daily life in our society, providing regular coverage of events, both historic and ordinary, and allowing us to learn about current events outside of our community and country. Newspapers were the first mass media to collect and distribute such information to a wider audience. The first regularly (weekly) published newspaper in the world emerged in Paris in 1631, and others popped up in Florence, Rome, and Madrid over the next few decades. The first daily newspaper was published in Leipzig, Germany, in 1660. In just a little over 100 years, in the late 1700s, large European cities like London and Paris had around 200 newspapers, some published daily, some weekly, and some at other intervals.

The first printed newspaper in South Africa was the Cape Town Gazette, which was established in 1800, precursor to the Government Gazette. The South African Commercial Advertiser followed it from 1824 (Le Roux, 2012). This newspaper was censored after just 17 issues but resumed printing a few months later. Other newspapers that followed were the South African Chronicle and Mercantile Advertiser (also established in 1824), and Umshumayeli Wendaba, printed by missionaries in Grahamstown from 1837. By 1846, the Natal Witness appeared, making it the oldest remaining daily newspaper today. Since then, many other titles have appeared, such as The Cape Times, Cape Argus, and The Star. The Afrikaans Patriot appeared in 1876. In 1915, De/Die Burger was established as a daily newspaper. With this, the publishing company Nasionale Pers was founded. This company later became an international conglomerate, focussing less on mass media and more on online retail. Its mass media business is now called Media24, still one of the largest mass media companies in South Africa.

There have always been a number of newspapers owned and managed by black people in South Africa, but because of the political situation in the country, lack of infrastructure and funding issues, over the years, many of these newspapers closed down or were taken over by wealthy white owners who were looking at making money from black readers (The Journalist, 2017).

According to The Journalist (2017), in the late 19th century, John Tengo Jabavu resigned from Isigidimi samaXhosa (the isiXhosa Messenger) to publish the first black-owned and controlled newspaper, Imvo Zabantsundu (African Opinion), in King William’s Town in 1884. This newspaper survived until the late 1980s. There were several other black-owned newspapers, including Solomon Tshekiso Plaatjie’s Koranta eBecoana (Bechuana Gazette, from 1901), Izwi laBantu (1897, in the former Natal colony), Ilanga lase Natal (The Natal Sun), and the Indian Opinion, founded by V. Madanjith in 1903. Mahatma Gandhi later became the editor of Indian Opinion.

However, from the 1930s to the 1960s, wealthy white media owners took over the black newspaper business, publishing, among others, The World. Despite being owned by white people, some of these newspapers were involved in the struggle against apartheid and were often banned by the apartheid regime.

John Tengo Jabavu and his son, Davidson Don Tengo, around 1903. John Tengo Jabavu was the founder of Imvo Zabantsundu, the first black-owned newspaper in South Africa. Picture: By unknown author – Higgs, C. The ghost of equality. Athens (Ohio), 1997. p. 77, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=13496713

Mass media in South Africa have never really returned to full black ownership or management, except in a few cases, such as the Independent Group.

Additional Reading

The history of printed newspapers and magazines in South Africa is interesting and long; however, the role of struggle newspapers and community newspapers in the apartheid era is often underplayed in history books. A PhD dissertation written by Hilton Kolbe at the University of Wollongong in Australia contains detailed research into the wider South Africa newspaper landscape, with a strong focus on struggle newspapers. It is available here: The South African print media: from apartheid to transformation. You can also read Pieter Fourie’s Media Studies: Institutions, theories, and issues, published in 2001. The latter book explores the history of the mass media in South Africa in detail, but because it was published 20 years ago, it does not cover the latest developments.

Newspapers around the world, including in South Africa, have faced many challenges in recent decades, mostly because of the increase of internet-based news, which many people see as “free news”, leading to a major decline in revenue and readers. The declining fortunes of many (not all) printed newspapers over the last few decades are an indication of how quickly things could change.

In the 1990s, printed newspapers had very high circulation numbers, many companies and business advertised in printed newspapers to reach hundreds of thousands of readers, and the money kept rolling in. It was a very successful business model. Then the internet came, and everything changed. Advertising on the internet was a lot cheaper, many people started reading their news online, and newspaper circulation started declining. Today, large newspapers in South Africa that once had circulation numbers (the number of newspapers they sold within a certain period of time) of hundreds of thousands are selling only a small percentage of that. The Sunday Times is an example. Once it sold around 450 000 copies per week. In 2021, that figure was 115 000 (Breitenbach, 2021). The overall drop in circulation of South African newspapers from 2016 to 2020 was 59%. Some newspapers closed, and some moved their news online – sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

To deal with financial issues brought about by the rise of online media, papers have laid off employees, cut resources for journalists, closed international and local bureaus, eliminated rural or distant delivery, reduced frequency of publication, and contracted out or partnered on content. While some doomsayers claim the problems experienced by printed newspapers are the “end of news” or the “end of journalism”, it is clearly not true. The world of journalism is simply changing. In legacy media, there are still many highly successful newspapers, online news websites, radio, and television stations.

In South Africa, there are also many community newspapers – papers that focus exclusively on specific areas or suburbs – but these papers have also experienced some financial difficulties. Often, their parent companies relied on a selection of mainstream newspapers and local papers as revenue streams, but these revenue streams have dried up. Different and new revenue models have appeared to help some local news survive, such as initiatives funded by local governments, sponsorships, or simply people who create their own, hyperlocal publications and then rely on advertising from local businesses for revenue.