Daily Maverick shuts down for the day to highlight 'global state of emergency' in newsrooms
The publication said journalism is experiencing a market failure and is at risk of collapse, with newsrooms across the world closing down and retrenching journalists.
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JOHANNESBURG - Daily Maverick CEO Styli Charalambous has highlighted the pivotal role journalism and journalists play in society today as the publication shuts its doors for the day.
It said this move is to highlight what it labelled the global state of emergency in journalism.
The publication said journalism was experiencing a market failure and was at risk of collapse, with newsrooms across the world closing down and retrenching journalists.
South Africa has lost what pundits put at close to 70% of its media workforce in the last 15 years.
Charalambous said financial support and policy reform were urgently needed.
"I think as more and more and more information, mis- and dis-information comes into that space, and clouds what is the truth and what is as close to the truth and reality as possible, we need more journalists doing that hard work of being a public service to society. It helps protect democracy. It helps people make better decisions; informed decisions."
Charalambous highlighted the impact journalism, and in particular investigative journalism, had had on South Africa, and asked the public to consider what the country would be like without it.
"We would have a very different country. We would have a very different country at the leadership level of this country. From the Presidency to the Health Ministry to the Revenue Service, all of those positions have been impacted by the work of whistleblowers and investigative journalists."
Media Monitoring Africa’s William Bird said he hopes the move highlights to the public just how important journalism is.
"It would be nice to think all journalists in all newsrooms should shut down. But that would be like asking all emergency responders to not go to work for one day to highlight the crisis in emergency services.
"And obviously that sounds like a good idea but you can't, which highlights the fact that journalism is a fundamental public service. It’s something that's essential for democracies to function."