Cape Town - Sekunjalo Investment Holdings, one of the founding investors of the African News Agency (ANA), said on Friday that it had won the assets of the South African Press Association (Sapa) — including its brand name, news and picture archives after its bid was approved by the newswire’s board and members.
“Our bid for the Sapa assets was extremely important and we are very happy that it has now been approved by the Sapa Board. We want to make it clear that Sekunjalo’s intention was always to protect and safeguard the Sapa brand and the important role it played in South Africa’s media history,” said Chris Borain, Sekunjalo’s digital head and chief executive of ANA said in a statement.
“We also want to place it on record that we reached out to Gallo and KMMR, the other companies who had made a bid for Sapa, and extended a hand of partnership with them to see how we could work together to save Sapa and ensure that it was commercially sustainable,” Borain said. “We also want to make it clear that we went as far as to approach Media24 to partner with us to keep Sapa afloat, but they opted to rather have Sapa shut down and see over 70 people lose their jobs, than to work with us.”
Sekunjalo emphasised that it would give Sapa’s existing staff the preferential ability to apply for roles within ANA, subject to its normal recruitment processes.
Borain said that ANA was successfully building a strong news team, including experienced Sapa reporters, to deliver a quality, neutral news agency product.
“We continue to be in contact with existing clients and staff of Sapa to work with them in establishing an agency that will provide the quality diary and content service Sapa was known for. We have used the month of March to test our systems and to build our team and we are extremely happy with the progress we are making in establishing a solid and credible source of rich African and international news content,” he said.
Borain added that the Baobab Suite technology system, which houses the ANA wire service, had performed well in the testing phase and that it wold provide an enhanced content management system far superior to that previously used by Sapa.
ANA has secured feeds from international news agencies that will be available to its subscribers. These include Germany’s DPA and Xinhua, the largest news agency in the world with a bureau and content presence in 38 African countries.
In turn, ANA’s content will be available on the extensive Xinhua platform globally. ANA also has an agreement in place with the Associated Press.
“We have noted the entry into the South African market of news wire services by the likes of News24 and the Times Media Group, inevitable given their heavy reliance on Sapa previously. We look forward to comparing our service with theirs in South Africa, but our objectives are far broader and continental in nature as we establish ANA globally as the African continent’s first multimedia content syndication agency,” Borain said, adding that ANA had met with a number of important continental stakeholders such as the African Union and The All Africa Editors Forum (TAEF) to get their support.
“We are encouraged by the constructive engagements we have had with them and the enthusiastic response to the need for a bona fide African news syndication agency. We will intensify our efforts to solidify content syndication partnerships in Africa, as we seek to meet our objective to have a presence in 15 African countries by the end of July,” he said.
ANA was launched on 1 March 2015 after an initial investment of $20 million by a group of African entrepreneurs.
Independent Media, which owns IOL, has signed on as ANA’s first subscriber and ANA is in the process of signing up many of Sapa’s long-time clients and subscribers.
The ANA editorial team includes former Weekend Argus Deputy Editor Lindiz van Zilla as ANA national news editor. In Parliament, the ANA team is bolstered by the experience of Chantall Presence, who was a key member of Sapa’s Parliamentary Bureau. Former Financial Mail journalist Thebe Mabanga heads up ANA’s Business and Economics Desk, an area not extensively covered by Sapa before, while Sapa’s current Pretoria Bureau Chief Jonisayi Maromo will also fulfil this role at ANA. Veteran sports journalist Herman Gibbs was also recruited as part of the ANA start-up editorial team. In addition, Peter Fabricius, who will retire in April after a long spell in charge of Independent Newspapers’ Foreign Service, will consult for ANA and help build the agency’s network of stringers on the African continent.
“We are very excited by the quality, experience and ability of the team we are putting together at ANA. News agencies are a completely different proposition to print media publications, and we have carefully chosen a team well versed with handling the intensity of the demands of a 24-hour news agency operation. We have had considerable interest from journalists looking to join ANA and we continue to recruit the best possible team in South Africa and on the African continent,”said Borain.
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