140703mg

The Iqbal Effect on Newspapers

Iqbal Survé’s Sekunjalo Independent Media (SIM) led a consortium that bought Independent News & Media from its Irish owners in August 2013 for R2bn. Since the acquisiion, he seems to have a rather negative effect on his newspaper editor-in-chiefs. Icqbal Survé is a  braggart flinging around first-person promises about what “I” plan to do, how “as executive chairman I, together with the senior management ... intend to arrest this decline”.Since acquisition he has lost or fired the editors in chief of the Cape Times, Sunday Independent, The Mercury and the The Star.  The first editor to be fired was Cape Times'  Alide Dasnois, who was given an immediate notice to vacate her position to take up the editorship of a still to be formed labour bulletin, but declined to do so. In March 2014, Sunday Independent editor, Moshoeshoe Monare joined the Mail & Guardian as deputy Editor. In June 2014, the editor of Durban-based newspaper The Mercury, Philani Mgwaba, tendered his resignation to take up a position with Independent’s main rival Times Media Group. This was follwed by the resignation of editor of The Star newspaper, Makhudu Sefara. His one supporter is Karima Brown, whom   Survé appointed as his group executive editor.

© 2014 Zapiro / www.zapiro.com (All rights reserved)

To order your free Zapiro cartoon image click on number above

You may place this image on your blogging site as long as
you link the cartoon back to http://www.zapiro.com/cartoon/2302592...
and mention © 2014 Zapiro / www.zapiro.com (All rights reserved) underneath the cartoon