EDITOR’S NOTE: Reckless ‘disinformation merchants’ are filling a vacuum

Hlaudi Motsoeneng File picture: Matthews Baloyi/ANA

Hlaudi Motsoeneng File picture: Matthews Baloyi/ANA

Published Dec 15, 2018

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Last week I expressed my dismay at tycoon Johann Rupert letting a huge opportunity to steer the national discourse about our future go to waste during his much-talked-about radio interview.

What followed was Andile Mngxitama, a prominent “enemy of peace and reconciliation”, seizing the opportunity for fascist formation. Other loonies like Steve Hofmeyr then came out of the woodwork.

And now people are accusing “the media” of giving these reckless “disinformation merchants” airtime. The fact is, you can’t keep bad men down when the good are scared of standing up and being counted.

Aristotle once said nature hates vacuums. So do politics and the economy.

That explains a perplexing development of the week, Hlaudi Motsoeneng launching his party to contest next year’s elections. The disgraced but unapologetic former SABC operations chief has spotted a vacuum, a gap in the market or a market in the ever-widening gap in our body politic.

The gap has opened so much that President Cyril Ramaphosa is now aiming for just 50% of the vote, leaving the rest to every Hlaudi, Julius and Harry. While Minister Bathabile Dlamini has allegedly raised the bar, CR has lowered the ANC’s.

Motsoeneng is on to something. We really need fresh content, hence his formation of the African Content Movement. If Mzansi’s “good men”, most of whom are rich and powerful, can’t provide the content, the loonies will hog the news, and the minds, of the electorate.

And where’s that Good party woman?

* Mazwi Xaba is the editor of the Independent On Saturday

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