May 2019 will be remembered as the month that South Africans went to the polls for the fifth time since we attained democratic freedom in the 1990s. The elections that took place on 8 May went without incident and with journalists and other media professionals being free to report on the events

This past month also saw SAMIP begin working with its newly added participants: GSport4Girls, ViewFinder and #YouthTruth (currently known as #SMWX).

Elections 2019 coverage highlights:

#YouthTruth’s flagship show (The Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh Experience) has been making waves for providing a young voice to political discourse in South Africa.

The show started in March with a build-up to the national elections and stakeholders from the major political parties were invited to participate in a series of interviews.

After the elections, The Daily Vox provided a liveblog of the president’s inauguration, that took place on 25 May, on social media which was highly engaged with by their readers:

In Mpumalanga, The New Era reported on the impact of the results on the provincial political scene which saw the Democratic Alliance being replaced by the Economic Freedom Fighters as the official opposition to the African National Congress (ANC).

Leading up to the elections The New Era provided great coverage of the political in-fighting that had engulfed the ANC.

Getting financially literate

On 20 May the team from Unafundo, a business consulting firm run by Khulekile Msimang and his wife Wenzile Madonsela, trained our grantees on financial literacy and business management skills.

The training was in line with SAMIP’s capacity building initiatives which seek to empower our participants with the necessary skills and infrastructure to become sustainable media companies.

During the day our grantees were taken through the basics of financial reporting, accounting, and developing budgets for small businesses.

As the second half of 2019 begins SAMIP looks forward to working with our growing cohort of participants in innovating and transforming the media space in South Africa. Already there are plans to participate in Radio Days Africa, which takes place in July, and WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Africa conference in September.

Continue visiting our site for more updates on the program and our future plans for our participants and the industry.