Journos' SOS call unanswered

This great profession that has been our calling, is dying. Former Mmegi editor Ntibinyane Ntibinyane predicted this in April in his widely published article titled “Coronavirus may spell the end for many of Africa’s print newspapers”.

In the article that was originally published in the INK Centre for Investigative Journalism, Ntibinyane said, “Newspapers are on financial ventilators. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the writing was already on the wall. Newspapers were bleeding money. The traditional business model was collapsing. The virus is only expediting the inevitable death”. As I started to type this, just a moment ago, I received the bank salary SMS, the one that we call (((PING))) in our WhatsApp group and it is evidence enough that we are facing the end of the newspapers – at least the way we knew them. (((PING))) used to be the most positive news we get monthly.