There is an unfortunate reason why those involved in mischief hate newspapers so much.
I for one have — during a career dating back many years — been on the firing line of those we have exposed for wrongdoing.
Working for a Gauteng-based newspaper some years ago — the Pretoria News, to be specific — I travelled to the township of Mamelodi in the company of photographer, Julani van der Westhuizen.
At the volatile Tsako-Thabo Secondary School, we stumbled into a mob of comrades who surrounded the car, shouting that they had at last caught up with me, supposedly Mpho Kobue of the Sunday Times.
It took the local chairman of the militant Congress of South African Students to cool off tempers, impressing on the volatile mob that I was not Mpho Kobue.
Knowing journalists and our dark sense of humour at times, after the harrowing experience, I checked on my buddy Mpho at the Pretoria bureau of the Sunday Times.
Huffing and puffing, I told Mpho about my close shave, to which he laughed, winked and just declared: “Pasop! (watch out!)”
At The BEAT last week we published a rather embarrassing picture of a police van transporting jerrycans of water in Modimolle.
Although we cannot say in so much words, it looked rather odd for an official vehicle to be used for that purpose.
Or could it be that there were water supply challenges at the local police station, too? We don’t know.
I shall be tasking one of the reporters to follow up on this.
That particular newspaper with the headline “Maak ’n plan, broer” was one of those which were snapped up like hot cakes.
My armchair analysis of the success of the latter edition is that ordinary people are just sick and tired of wrongdoing. That is, if the police van in question was not transporting water in
terms of shortages at the police station.
As we head into the days of Yuletide, advertisers (both regular and potential), are advised that there is a set deadline for space in the Christmas edition.
The deadline for this purpose is Friday 7 December at 10 am.
For those wishing to place news articles in the last edition of The BEAT, you are all advised to make contact with the editor and/or reporters by Friday 30 November at 16:00.
It is on a sad note that we report on another accident on the N1.
By the time you read this, Mzamane Ringane would have shed more light on the road accident.
— The BEAT
