Communication today – are we better off?

South Africa (SANEPR.com) July 16, 2008 -- I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps we were better off before instant messaging. After all perhaps it would have been better if that mampara (to use that wonderful term the Sunday Times has given us) Julius Malema’s now famous quote that he would KILL for Zuma hadn’t flashed around the world at the speed of light, helping our rand in its freefall! In the old days – and here I mean one hundred years ago or so before Marconi invented the wireless telegraph it would have taken around six months to get news. Hey, a whole war could break out and end before we’d hear of it over here. Today you cough and the whole world knows instantly!

But back to Mamparalema – in six month’s time once he’s been hauled across the Human Right’s Commission, possibly spent a night or two in chookie where he’d possibly join a gang and get a snazzy tattoo, he will not only say he was misquoted, but that he pleads insanity and doesn’t remember saying it at all. By which time the Rand wouldn’t have had time to plummet and Jacob Zuma would have been found guilty and be tucked up next to his mate Malema so they could bond together further. And the rand would be fine! Can you tell I’m about to go overseas…
And then there’s the refugee crisis. According to government these camps will be taken down by August so in pre tech days they could have come and gone without anyone outside SA knowing…

But today no-one is immune and we have to watch what we say very carefully – not to mention who we’re seen with, read cellphone cameras. Had these been around in the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton days can you imagine the shots we might have seen?
If you’re in the public eye you’re virtually fair game 365 days a year – where can you go where there’s no phones and no cameras. Well, possibly maximum security, so that’s good news for Malema!

Marion Scher
Media Mentors
www.mediamentors.co.za
pr@mediamentors.co.za