EFFORTPOST Historic moment, the last Rapport Koerant (most famous Afrikaans newspaper) printed its last final physical copy, likely ever. They'll continue only with digital news onwards, though their digital market is substantially smaller. This likely marks the end of weekly physical newspapers in Safrica.

The Rapport had been the premier Afriaans newspaper for over 50 years, but like so many physical media over the world, they've taken a nosedive when confronted with the competition of instant access digital media,

which could broadcast stories instantly, and for no physical printing costs. Newspapers all over the world have also struggled with the competition in terms of people having become used to "free" news sites (with banner ads) versus a weekly/daily paper's upfront cost.

Additionally a lot of faith have been lost in mainstream media, of all countries - where the predominant pattern appears to be that ground level plebs tend to be more conservative/right-wing than than the more liberally oriented Journ*list class which had some hand in influencing national or international conversations.

This divide between liberal journ*lists and more conservative/rightoid laymen is hilariously apparent for ALL the fricking races in Safrica, but not in the way you would expect, or as similar as you would think as in Burgerland lol

Examples:

For black peeps, like the Zulus especially ( the largest ethnic tribe/group of the country), there has been decisive differences in public perception between the everyman, and the more liberal Zulu Upper Class.

Foreigners would make the mistake that because of the dominacy of the ANC, that liberalism/leftism is the dominant train of thought amongst black peeps, when in reality the conservative Zulus and Xhosas only support these parties/policies because it benefits them personally, like land grabs and gins, and BEE affirmative action.

But liberal notions like pan+African racial unity gets thrown out of the window 🪟 when competition, when foreigners from middle Africa, like Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Angolans are often frequently attacked by Zulus in xenophobic attacks, due to the desperation in a country where there's a near 30% unemployment since COVID.

The Zulu king got "in trouble" from the black national newspapers, because he had invited xenophobia and violence unto Zimbabwean refugees and migrants, yet the consensus amongst Zulus, those amongst the majority poor rural class shared in his opinion, stark contrast to the liberal journ*lists who condemned him.

https://www.npr.org/2015/04/26/402400958/south-africas-xenophobic-attacks-vile-says-zulu-king-accused-of-inciting-them

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For the just under 1 million Indians in SA, they are the most self-segregating and anti-black demographic, with their upfront racism towards blacks going relatively unnoticed because majority of social capital spent against whites

For reference, look at @Sneedman's recent sneed about Indian racism

https://rdrama.net/post/321001/south-africa-and-the-indian-question

Oh yes, in Safrica, Indians are upper middle class, and look down on black peeps, the way Canadians look on sexy Indian dudes.

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For Boer whites you guys don't need introduction on how we are out of sync with the dominant global liberal orthodoxy, it's more Bongs in general whom are usually one standard deviation more liberal than average that's interesting 🤔

The fabled harmonious racially peace 🕊️ ✌️ ful Rainbow 🌈 nation of past Mandela's dream, has failed to realize these past 30 years, due to entrenched ANC corruption and even these Bongs on average are now much more right wing than the average than the usual English journ*list.

Additionally English journ*lists have themselves been in the forefront with exposing systemic government corruption

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For coloureds, the coloured dominant Cape Town based media, like magazines and Newspapers, were utterly shocked this year's May 2024 election

When a monumental upset occured, with the ANC losing its supermajority, to the new Zulu Ultranationalist party MP, and the DA getting decent numbers, yet also being similarly cucked in the Cape Town municipality

By losing large blocs of coloured votes to the PA (Patriotic Alliance) a Coloured ethnic nationalist group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_African_general_election

Who felt that neither black nor white dominant parties of ANC/DA represented them. They often feel they were too brown for Apartheid and too light skinned for the ANC, as they get shafted by BEE - a legalized affirmative action legislation which can only exist in a nation state where one racial group vastly outnumbers the others.

The breaking and thus weakening of the DA caused intense sneed amongst coloured journ*lists who wanted a unified front against Anc corruption, and that they were surprised by those events are symptomatic of how out of sync their respective journos are with their ground level peeps.

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Point is every conceivable demographic in SA is hilariously more chuddy in some unique fashion, than the journ*list class from that demographic in SA.

As is similar in Burgerland and Europe, but what has made the divide between the global modern liberal orthodoxy even more extreme has been social media, especially Facebook which dominated Southern Africa, compared to twitter in the West.

Many dramatards here are likely more Reddit addicts than Facebook, which has a more boomer/3rd world demographic

In Facebook, even with so much banning and censorship, chudthink rise to whatever counts as the front page, in spite of jannies or Facebook sexy Indian dude mods

In these insane slapfiights, with people often under their ACTUAL IRL identity 🆔, you'll find opinions which make 4chan and 9gag look meek ,and you'll find how decisively the everyman of Indians/coloureds/Boers/sothos/pedis/Khoisan/Zulus/Xhosas are all just one ragebait post away from chipping out and showing the veneer of civilization is a Journos fantasy 😇 😈

Thus trust in journ*lists/Media to represent the interests of every group appears to have eroded away the past decades, as social media proliferated along with cheaper internet and smartphones, allowing the bypass of media orthodoxy

During COVID the death knell of physical papers were sounded, as during lockdown people were prevented from going outside to buy their weekly papers, and even the technologically illiterate were pushed through boredom to buy large internet, fibre, or download news apps and join Facebook news groups

Many peeps were thus in a nation wide scale exposed to the convenience and ease of news on their smartphones or computers, and even when lockdowns lifted in 2021, sales never recovered across the industry.

Publications like News24 which jumped ahead with the rapidly changing events were the 1st to rapidly program the best apps and gained a large market share, and thus rode on fire chariots the change from physical to digital media, like Zoom became dominant instantly as the premier online meeting app/program for SA businesses.

Other papers like the Rapport reacted or realised too late the need to have a digital presence to survive in this new world and for the past 4 years have been chugging along on fumes.

The Rapport was hardest hit and most tragic, because it was considered the most impressive and prestigious newspaper in the country, even when democratisation in 1994, when English became the most common tongue, and 10 other languages because part of the recognized official languages.

The Rapport had the intergenerational experience, infrastructure and prestige.

Important world changing events were often sought after specifically in the Rapport, because the best journ*lists wrote there, even Bong journ*lists, because many SA Englishman can speak Afrikaans.

The weekly format actually gave the newspaper credence because unlike daily rags chasing the daily story to make ends meet ,the weekly format allowed the experienced Journos to really do their research and make higher calibre articles.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred the entire nation would wait for the Rapport to a make an extensive and in depth coverage of the events made understandable for plebse

Even English and Sotho newspapers would source or share the Rapport articles afterwards, due to it's influence.

Yet as the internet proliferated, the format of waiting a week to read substantial important news as much as a week later became untenable and unpopular

Independent online news publications became increasingly competitive and competent, and the BEE for forcing it's way into all institutions, meant that white new reporters would seek their fame online instead.

Worsening the cycle of decline was that the Rapport and other news papers became more expensive to make up for the decline in sales ,from 11rand to 20rand, to 30rand, to eventually 39rand, almost the price of a high grade magazine.

But worst of all was that the editors leadership went full r-slur, and began to focus on Daily Mail tier slop, the paper got a reputation as a gossip rag for SA celebrities, which even South Africa doesn't care about, when superior Bong/Burger musicians exist.

Thus the Uber prestigious reputation went to shit. There was a time when the Rapport had special editions with extensive and fabulous resourced articles, with sketches maps and diagrams.

Like their infamous coverage of the killing Saddam or Bin Laden, with extensive details about the special forces involved. Visiting yanks were so impressed, that they claimed the coverage of the events were better than American news networks which were sensational junk news, whilst the Rapport was measured and neutral.

By the time, 2020 pandemic arrived, there was no loyal reader based.

Now this doesn't mean that physical papers will forever be gone, perhaps only that weekly formats are likely in a permanent decline.

Additionally other papers are still going strong, and perhaps only because Afrikaans has declined as a language worthy of catering towards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_South_Africa

After all there's always gonna be peeps enjoying physical media, just like Kindles will never completely replace physical 📚📖📚📚📚📚 books

But the fact remains that physical media is deeply in distress and only continually declining for various complicated reasons.

https://dailyinvestor.com/business/54653/plan-to-close-beeld-and-rapport-newspapers-confirmed/

Earlier this year in June the news went under the radar and most didn't even believe it

https://www.bizcommunity.com/article/beeld-rapport-city-press-daily-sun-and-soccer-laduma-to-close-670291a

A shit load of publications are eating shit

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1033243152150182&id=100063935197932