On buying newspapers

Posted on June 25th, 2008 by Richard Catto 1,063 views

My favourite Boer Blogger, Johan Swarts, mentioned today in his blog that he’s no longer prepared to buy a newspaper because by the time he reads their news, it’s already old news, having been picked up by him already either on his laptop or cellphone.

As a side issue, he mourns the plight of the homeless bergies (who use newspapers as blankets) and slap chip purveyors (who he thinks still use newsprint to wrap their chips).

I’ll second you on the bergie issue, Johan, but the Fish and Chip shops have long ditched newsprint in favour of pristine white wrappers. At least the good ones have. The ones I buy from. Yes, I am a snob.

My father and my brother both buy and read newspapers religiously whereas I have eschewed them for as long as I can remember. I can’t recall a time that I bought any newspaper religiously.

If I recall correctly, I believe it was Vincent Maher who blogged that newspaper circulations continue to rise despite the encroachment of freely available online news. I wonder if that was just media spin from a person who is employed by a large South African paper? Or perhaps things have changed since then?

I wonder if in 20 years time, all doubt will have been removed and we will know that printed newspapers are now in a steep decline?

I just can’t see printed newspapers as having a very long term future.

Tags: Johan Swarts, Newspapers
Filed under Newspapers |

11 Responses to “On buying newspapers”

1. Henk Says:
   June 25th, 2008 at 10:03

   Your “Favourite Boer Blogger”?

   Then I guess you’ll have to enjoy his blog as long as you can, seeing as you plan on killing him together with the rest of his nation pretty soon.

2. Richard Catto Says:
   June 25th, 2008 at 10:21

   @Henk: The genocide story was invented by sensationalist bloggers. Johan has a keener wit than you. You could learn from him.

3. Henk Says:
   June 25th, 2008 at 11:26

   “Invented” by sensationalist bloggers? I seem to remember you putting finger to keyboard for that. No “invention” by any third party there, boet. It was YOU saying that YOU support genocide against a specific people because “they” are “all” racists. Not knowing every single one of them personally, you generalise towards a total race of people, and all I want to know is how, in particular, that makes you any different.

   And you simply refuse to answer me.

   And now you come up with this “sensationalist bloggers” bullshit.

   Until such time as I get a satisfactory answer from you, I will keep on asking for it. In non-related threads, nogal, because after having tagged the original genocide thread (which was initially a comment about the Maas story) as “Private”, I can’t comment there, where it would be relevant, you see.

   So, you cut your nose to spite your face, so to speak.

   Calling for killing the Afrikaner and promoting the killing of the Afrikaner, or any other people in general, will do you no good. And I won’t go away until such time I got an answer.

   And I don’t give a tom tit’s tosser whether Johan or any other person has a keener wit than me. Exposing bigots like you isn’t a battle of wits. It’s simply exposing you for being the intellectually dishonest bigoted and racist fraud that you are.

   Although watching you jump around covering your tracks is mildly amusing, though.

4. Marko Says:
   June 25th, 2008 at 17:38

   Ok so if I may write about newspapers now not genocide:
   I only buy the Sunday Times. It’s lekker to relax and flip through on a Sunday morning while chowing brekkie. Otherwise during the week I get news via RSS.
   It would be interesting to see the effect technology such as micropaper and the like will have.
   Imagine an electronic newspaper that constantly updated itself, can display dynamic media, even possibly touch-sensitive.

5. Josh Says:
   June 25th, 2008 at 19:10

   Hey man,

   As you know from the efforts being made by the racists at SAS (http://southafricanhell.blogspot.com/2008/06/cape-town-man-advocates-genocide-of.html), you are being asked to apologize for your comments about the boers. Sure, it is very ironic that the racists ask for your apology, but it seems they are very intent on doing you some serious harm by posting to your “87″ neighbours in your complex.

   Just apologise and let all this nonsense go away, even if you don’t mean it!

6. Henk Says:
   June 26th, 2008 at 08:37

   Hey there, Josh

   I can’t vouch for the guys at southafricanhell, they can all go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.

   What I’m raising, is, I belive, a valid point.

   I am asking Richard Catto how, in particular, does the calling of a genocide against a people he blames of racism, make him any different?

   You see, he’s trying to claim the moral high ground by calling for that most immoral of solutions. Ask Hitler.

   And I think that’s symptomatic of our society. Everybody wants the moral high ground, but nobody’s willing to admit they’re cocking up, too.

   I’m an Afrikaner, proudly so. Call me a Boer if you like, I wear that particular badge with pride. I agree, Apartheid was wrong. Will I apologize for it? No way. How on Earth do you want me to apologize for something I didn’t do? To whom? Where? When? How can I apologize for the actions of my father and grandfather’s generations? Will the SABC give airtime to each and every Afrikaner in order to publicly apologize? What platform exist for the apology Catto wants from the Afrikaner?

   He blames us for not coming clean with our sins, whilst the possibility and logistics for doing so clearly doesn’t exist. And because of that, the only solution he sees is genocide against my people.

   I don’t want an apology. I don’t believe Catto is capable of anything sincere, being the rock of morality that he is. I just want to know how it makes him any different.

   The point is, the Afrikaners have fucked up. Do you solve that particular fuckup with another fuckup?

   The poms have fucked up here, as well. 27,000 dead women and children testifies to that. Do I want an apology? From whom? To whom? Who today represents the Boere and Rooinekke of 100 years ago? Hell – who represents the Boere of 20 years ago? Who, pray tell, represents them today? Eugene Terreblanche? Don’t make me laugh.

   The Zulus have fucked up in a big way with their Mfecane. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for white interference in the 1800’s, in particular that of the Boere in the Groot Trek, SA would today be populated by Whites and ONLY Zulus – no other tribes. So should we demand an apology from the Zulus? From whom? Is Bhutelezi representative of the Zulus? Please – more than 50% of Zulus will tell you to go to hell if you claim that. King Goodwill Zwelitini? Should he apologize for Shaka’s excesses? He’ll laugh at you, in your face, and then go and shag his twelfth underage wife with a grin on his face.

   Each and every tribe (including the white tribe of Africa, the Boere) have a bloody and sordid history behind them. None of them can lay claim to the moral high ground. There is no such thing as a “South African”, South African is a secondary membership to our prime allegiance, that of being a member of a particular tribe. And don’t tell me any different – that’s the unlucky story of South Africa. The last few weeks’ xenophobic attacks where lots of victims were South Africans of the wrong tribe testifies to that.

   So what would you achieve with calling for genocide? Achieving that elusive moral high ground that everybody’s been looking for since 1652? Nope. You’d just continue with the same bullshit thats been dividing, splitting, devouring and destroying this country since the first Nguni crossed the Limpopo and started removing the San and Khoi from this land. They were to be followed by the whites who did precisely the same, they were just better armed.

   So how does it make Catto any different?

   There’s a paradigm shift needed to address our problems. And that’s not to ask anybody for apologies. It’s simply to accept our past for what it is, accept and respect our differences, and go forward.

   Catto propose to physically remove everybody who doesn’t think like him.

   And that was precisely the aim of Apartheid.

   I don’t want an apology. I simply want an answer to a very simple question.

7. Lucius Sulla Says:
   June 27th, 2008 at 15:35

   Generally, people who dont read newspapers tend to be rather stupid. I.e they don’t understand the difference between editorial content and news.

   Anyone who is building his or her opinions based on arb commentary gleaned from the sphincternet is obviously an idiot.

   Lucius Sulla’s last blog post..Flaming Youth

8. Lucius Sulla Says:
   June 27th, 2008 at 15:48

   @Henk – Re your response to Josh – you make an excellent point and it’s very well stated. It’s obvious that most South Africans both black and white don’t understand our collective history – you should start a bog and use your comment above as your first post.

   Keep em coming.

   Lucius Sulla’s last blog post..Flaming Youth

9. Richard Catto Says:
   June 27th, 2008 at 17:27

   @Lucius Sulla: Whatever is printed on newsprint is ALSO published online. In greater volumes.

   See, before The Internet Age, all that I could easily access were local newspapers and magazines. Now, during the Internet Age, I can read content from global newspapers and form a much more rounder opinion of things.

   Therefore you are in fact the idiot moron.

   Henk’s commentary is not good enough for a self hosted WordPress blog. He can toss it at blogger or WordPress.com and probably get the same amount of attention as your own blog.

10. Chris M Says:
    June 29th, 2008 at 22:22

    I see no point in buying a paper anymore, unless I’m away for the weekend and my mobile and laptop go missing

11. Richard Catto Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 01:44

    @Chris M: I think your attitude is being more and more mainstream, because newspaper circulations worldwide continue to decline in absolute numbers (read the linked article).

    I have confirmed that my memory was indeed correct – it was indeed Vincent Maher who blogged about Mail & Guardian circulation being up. Matthew Buckland also chimed in in the comments section, asserting that “print won’t ever die”.

    Interesting to note that Maher is leaving M&G to join Vodacom and Buckland is going over to Naspers, a media organisation that has been guilty of seriously over-exaggerating its publications’ circulations in order to be more attractive to advertisers.

    I believe that print will definitely die – 100% certainty of that happening. It is a statistical inevitability. At some point, the tipping point will be reached where it is no longer worthwhile to continue printing newspapers and magazines and hardcopy versions will cease to be available.

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