I wrote on Wednesday (20 February 2008) about how Swaziland’s only newspaper in the siSwati language Tikhatsi TeMaswati, had closed down, mainly because the company that owns it wasn’t able to make it pay.
I have been reminded that Tikhatsi, was not the only newspaper in the indigenous language that has been published in Swaziland.
Fanyana Mabuza, writing in the Weekend Observer (11 November 2006) at the time of Tikhatsi’s closure, gave a brief history of the vernacular press in Swaziland. Here is an extract from his essay.
‘We had a government publication, Umbiki, (The Reporter) established in the early 1970s and housed within the Swaziland Broadcasting Service. As a siSwati paper, it did not attract a large readership in the urban areas, but was well received in the rural areas and within the semi literate in the towns. It was let down by the poor distribution strategies employed, as it was easily available in the urban areas, where it was needed the least, but never making forays into the rural backwaters, where it would be more appreciated.
‘Another challenge was that even the crop of journalists at that time preferred to write in English, as it was the “hip thing to do” giving translators a major challenge in sustaining the drama in the copy, as it was not their original scripts.
‘Had the reporters wrote in siSwati, it would have made more impact even to the urbanised readership, as they would have been able to maintain the drama and emotion within their text. Umbiki folded down within that decade, despite the fact that the taxpayer, you and me, financed it.
‘Another siSwati title emerged in the mid-1980s, under the leadership of late flamboyant politician, Sishayi Nxumalo. It was called Umgijimi (The Runner) and boasted a number of local established scribes who had had it up to here with the shenanigans of the country's print media owners, or were just seeking new challenges. Again this title could not stake its claim in the market, as no meaningful advertisers thought would make mileage in a vernacular publication, Typical stereotyped thinking at play!
‘Umgijimi also went the Umbiki route sooner, leaving the recently suspended Tikhatsi TeMaswati as the lone vernacular press in the country.
‘The Swazi Observer group of Newspapers also tried to kick-start its own siSwati version of the English title. Named Intsatseli, (The Reporter) it did not thrive for long, while non-viability excuses were peddled.
‘Indeed a publication cannot sustain itself without the support of advertising; hence the Intsatseli also went under.’
Mabuza went on to say that to encourage communication in local languages in Africa, the first step is to promote vigorously, these languages through educational policy.
African governments should be more serious about the enhancement of our cultural heritage, of which language is the most single important factor.
The Swazi government should have held on tightly onto Umbiki, he writes, and today it could have made major strides to self-sustenance and information dissemination.
To break such a stalemate, the public and the private sectors, including media operators, should come together to organise seminars and workshops where there can be cross fertilisation of ideas on how to improve the lot of media, using African language.
In the meantime, Mabuza wrote, with Tikhatsi suspended, the fringe readers have lost their only source of written mainstream information. This then means that journalism in the country does not embrace all citizens, and this defeats the purpose of the trade, which seeks to inform, educate and entertain everyone regardless of academic achievement.
See also
CELEBRATING THE SWAZI LANGUAGE
Showing posts with label Tikhatsi TeMaswati. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tikhatsi TeMaswati. Show all posts
Friday, 22 February 2008
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
CELEBRATING THE SWAZI LANGUAGE
This week is siSwati Week in Swaziland – an opportunity to celebrate Swaziland’s indigenous language.
The Times of Swaziland on Monday (18 February 2008) told readers it ‘joins the nation in celebrating our mother tongue’.
To show its commitment to the siSwati language, throughout the week it intends to publish some of the winning entries in a national schools siSwati writing competition.
Well, thanks very much Times of Swaziland, but it is being a little bit dishonest when it says how much it wants to celebrate the siSwati language. In November 2006 it closed down indefinitely the only newspaper in Swaziland in the siSwati language. It did this because the newspaper, called Tikhatsi TeMaswati, wasn’t making the African Echo, the company that owns the Times, any money.
Ever since its closure, people living in the rural areas of Swaziland (and that’s about 75 percent of the kingdom’s population of nearly one million people) have been asking for its return.
According to the African Media Barometer – Swaziland 2007 report, published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland Chapter, Tikhatsi TeMaswati was a translation of articles already published in English in the Times. Had it carried original reports in siSwati it might have done better, the report stated.
It goes on to say that its main obstacle was attracting advertisers who assume people reading siSwati are poor and are, therefore, not worth advertising to.
That’s true. To make money a newspaper has to be attractive to advertisers. Just about every newspaper in the free world gets more of its income from selling advertising space than from the price people pay to buy it.
In Swaziland, about 70 percent of the population have an income of less than one US dollar a day (E7) and most of these people live in the rural areas. They have no money to spend so it follows that advertisers are not interested in them. If advertisers aren’t interested then a newspaper company is not going to make money by supplying poor people with a newspaper.
That’s how it works in Swaziland. The only newspapers published in the kingdom are in the English language and they circulate mostly in urban areas, which is where people with money live. Very few people in the kingdom are what you could call rich, but there are enough people with some money to attract advertisers.
Commercial companies whose only real interests are in making profits will not produce loss-making newspapers, even if there is a demand for them from poor people.
So, the Times can congratulate itself all it wants about supporting the siSwati language, but if it is genuine in this support it will open up Tikhatsi TeMaswati again.
The Times of Swaziland on Monday (18 February 2008) told readers it ‘joins the nation in celebrating our mother tongue’.
To show its commitment to the siSwati language, throughout the week it intends to publish some of the winning entries in a national schools siSwati writing competition.
Well, thanks very much Times of Swaziland, but it is being a little bit dishonest when it says how much it wants to celebrate the siSwati language. In November 2006 it closed down indefinitely the only newspaper in Swaziland in the siSwati language. It did this because the newspaper, called Tikhatsi TeMaswati, wasn’t making the African Echo, the company that owns the Times, any money.
Ever since its closure, people living in the rural areas of Swaziland (and that’s about 75 percent of the kingdom’s population of nearly one million people) have been asking for its return.
According to the African Media Barometer – Swaziland 2007 report, published by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland Chapter, Tikhatsi TeMaswati was a translation of articles already published in English in the Times. Had it carried original reports in siSwati it might have done better, the report stated.
It goes on to say that its main obstacle was attracting advertisers who assume people reading siSwati are poor and are, therefore, not worth advertising to.
That’s true. To make money a newspaper has to be attractive to advertisers. Just about every newspaper in the free world gets more of its income from selling advertising space than from the price people pay to buy it.
In Swaziland, about 70 percent of the population have an income of less than one US dollar a day (E7) and most of these people live in the rural areas. They have no money to spend so it follows that advertisers are not interested in them. If advertisers aren’t interested then a newspaper company is not going to make money by supplying poor people with a newspaper.
That’s how it works in Swaziland. The only newspapers published in the kingdom are in the English language and they circulate mostly in urban areas, which is where people with money live. Very few people in the kingdom are what you could call rich, but there are enough people with some money to attract advertisers.
Commercial companies whose only real interests are in making profits will not produce loss-making newspapers, even if there is a demand for them from poor people.
So, the Times can congratulate itself all it wants about supporting the siSwati language, but if it is genuine in this support it will open up Tikhatsi TeMaswati again.
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