What would we put in our coffee?

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TUESDAY, 7 MAY 2024

Have you ever thought about where milk comes from? Spoiler alert:
it’s not “the fridge”. 

There’s obviously a product life cycle that gets milk from the cow
to the conveniently packaged carton in your fridge. Most people –
we’d go as far to say the _majority_ — don’t consider this cycle
because, well, it’s just there. 

Now, for a horrific moment, imagine it wasn’t? What would we put in
our coffee?! 

WHY ARE WE IN YOUR INBOX CONJECTURING ABOUT THE END OF MILK? 

Because, like milk, journalism has a product life cycle which,
unsurprisingly, the majority of people don’t consider… it’s just
there. 

Until it’s not. 

There’s a very real, very scary crisis that news media across South
Africa are facing. 

SO, WHAT IS THIS ‘CRISIS’? 

Funding is drying up. For some media houses it’s already completely
gone, resulting in them shutting down permanently. This has left
regions across South Africa with no journalists. 

WHY DOES THAT MATTER?

“Journalism defends democracy” – you’ve probably seen us
mention that before, but what does it really _mean_? Essentially,
journalists are watchdogs. 

You go to work, earn your salary and pay taxes to the government so
they can take care of those kinda essential parts of society
(hospitals, roads, schools, ports, etc). 

Except, that doesn’t seem to be happening in reality.

Somewhere along the line, from when SARS takes your taxes to when
service delivery is meant to happen, money goes missing/is completely
mismanaged or is not used for its intended purpose. 

That’s where journalists come in. Our job is to check where your
taxes are going, to check that your mayor is actually turning up at
work, to ask why a road has exploded, why there is no water coming
through taps or why sewage is pumping into the ocean. 

Our job is to make the politicians accountable to you. 

BUT SURELY DAILY MAVERICK, AS A NATIONAL PUBLICATION, IS EVERYWHERE? 

Eh, no. This is a massive misconception. We’ve been punching above
our weight for 15 years. Our work has resulted in the stepping down of
various corrupt ministers and a corrupt president; our investigations
have been instrumental in the retrieval of billions of your taxes to
the State, so it’s easy to see why you would think that we’ve got
everything covered. 

The reality is, we have no permanent journalists employed in:

KZN
Limpopo
Northern Cape 
Mpumalanga 
Free State 
North West

We have one permanently employed journalist in the Eastern Cape. 

WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO ME? 

Whether you live in one of these provinces or not, with no journalism
there is no watchdog on municipalities.

WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THIS UP NOW? 

As local newsrooms have closed down, it has left a vacuum in these
regions. We have the experience and capability to expand into every
province, but we don’t have the funding. There is no government
funding for news media (haha, imagine?!) advertising revenue now goes
to social media and the majority of our 10-million+ monthly readers
can’t afford to help. 

As we said, it’s a crisis. 

SO PUT UP A PAYWALL? 

We can’t force our readers to pay because we know that the majority
of  citizens cannot afford the basics in life. They’ll simply
migrate to social media for their news. Do you really want the
electorate of South Africa being fed propaganda from politicians, with
no journalists checking the actual facts? 

WHAT CAN WE DO? 

If you’re an individual, you can join Maverick Insider, our
voluntary membership community. You choose the amount and you can
cancel at any time. If you contribute R200 per month, you get that
straight back in Pick n Pay asap! vouchers every month.

 Join Maverick Insider
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If you’re a company looking for a way for your CSI spend to make a
real difference to South Africa, or just want to advertise to 10
million well-informed South Africans, get in touch. 

There’s only so much we can do alone.

 Join Us
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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