Media Watch: David Bullard Attacks Black Columnists at The Weekender (RIP)
Alert! David Bullard has turned what must have been a smidgen of Schadenfreude at The Weekender‘s closing – the paper was part-owned by Avusa, owners of the Sunday Times, firerers of the same David Bullard – into, no prizes here for guessing what, a column.
His diagnosis on the newspaper’s demise boils down to two factors: a mismatch between the political and material orientation of its readers and the writers who filled its pages; and Avusa’s desire to protect the Sunday Times from competition. Fair points, perhaps, except that, in making the first, Bullard casually takes out the race card he apparently keeps up his sleeve and deals it into the mix. Black columnists like Xolela Mangcu (and, by implication, his Weekender colleague Jacob Dlamini – both out with new books) simply don’t cut the mustard, according to Bullard:
The problem with many black columnists is that they can’t write. Sure, they can string sentences together in such a way that they would pass an English language O level but, sadly, they are not very interesting writers. Many were academics and there is a great difference in writing a dry academic paper and knocking off a newspaper column that people actually want to read.
The cash strapped intellectual Xolela Mangcu was a case in point. Each week he would bore readers with how clever he was and how whiteys had better watch out because the day is coming when the darkies will run out of patience. This is not exactly what an affluent white wants to read in his weekend newspaper and the relief was palpable when Mangcu “resigned”, having failed to substantiate a defamatory claim he had made in his column about one of his betters.
- Complete article at the Richmark Sentinel
- Read Justice Malala’s column on The Weekender
- More media watch
Book details
- Screw It, Let’s Do Lunch by David Bullard
EAN: 9781770100732
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- The Democratic Moment: South Africa’s Prospects under Jacob Zuma by Xolela Mangcu
EAN: 9781770097742
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- Native Nostalgia by Jacob Dlamini
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EAN: 9781770097551
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