Russell Brand was not denied entry to South Africa or banned from the country, Huffington Post

Credit: Huffington Post

Russell Brand was not allowed to board a flight from London to Johannesburg to perform as part of his stand up world tour "Messiah Complex" on Friday because of what has been described as "not having enough blank pages on his passport".

Because of a mixture of ignorance and false information that has been disseminated by, among others, Brand himself, The Huffington Post somehow managed to surmise he had flown to South Africa, landed and is now banned from entering the country.  All three are incorrect.  He never left London.

Maybe the Huffington Post should stick to rehashing other publications' stories or as they call it "aggregating".

Tiger Woods hit a golf ball from Europe to Asia today - "which are in two different places"

After copying and pasting the AP story of Tiger Woods driving a golf ball over the Bosphorus Bridge, which devides Asia and Europe, The New York Daily News thought it was necessary to tell us in the accompanying tweet that both continents are indeed in two different places.

Thanks for that New York Daily News I never would would have learned that otherwise.

Power FM online presence fail

Gauteng's latest player in the Talk Radio business, Power FM unveiled their star-studded line up of hosts last week.  It looks like they spared no expense in marketing campaign and PR campaigns and got a lot of ink both in print and digital media ahead of their inaugural broadcast on the 18th of June 2013.

But it looks like they've neglected one of the most important tools no media organisation should be without - their website.  They've secured the .co.za domain but instead using it to communicate with potential listeners they've just put two boxes on the front page that harvest cellphone numbers and e-mail addresses from listeners.  This is a wasted opportunity they could have profiles of their personalities and the behind the scenes going ons and a countdown clock on there to keep the listeners updated.  I hope they that know people outside Gauteng would want to listen too and will at least have streaming service up and running by launch date.

It look like they're following the industry norm - the pretence that the internet doesn't exist - despite proclamations that they've come to shake things up and give us something different.  Radios's indifference to the internet echoes that of the newspapers and the music business before it.  Newspapers first dismissed the internet as a fad, then proceeded to put their content online for free, and only now they're waking up to the realisation that nobody is going to buy their physical product if they can access it for free on the net and are erecting paywalls.  Radio appears to be still in the denial phase - just pretending that the internet is over there and they're over here talking into the mic and playing music.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun here and Power FM are real innovators and will have a fully fledged website with schedules, profiles, news, live streams, podcasts and other great content by launch date.  It would be a real shame if they didn't.

The Daily Mail Ramaphosa picture fail

Maybe I'm being petty and should really focus on the disturbing story that's being reported instead of being childish by pointing out the newspaper's mistake, but this is really sloppy.

Somebody at The Daily Mail seems to have just lifted a youthful photo the late Steve Tshwete and used it to portray the rich Deputy President of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa.

This is the photo they should have used.

You're welcome.

Sky News: The Apprentice winner gets £100

Credit: Anna Wilson

The British version of Donald Trump, Sir Lord Alan Sugar (with less ridiculous hair) who hosts that country's version of The Apprentice was celebrating this afternoon after an employment tribunal dismissed one of show winners' claim of constructive dismissal.

In an effort to get the story out before their rival BBC News Channel, had a typo in their caption that claimed that the winners of the apprentice stand to take home £100.  I sincerely hope they get more than that, if only for putting up with Lord Sugar's vocabulary.

I hope grammar is on Women's Agenda

I don't know what the link or the website is about but I just had to stop and grab this tweet from the Women's Agenda feed.

After picking up my jaw from the floor, the only line I could write here is "I really hope grammar is on Women's Agenda."

BBC Today Programme discusses Justin Bieber

The maThe BBC Today Programme jewel in the crown and, some would argue, the only redeeming feature in the BBC's domestic ratio output.

This is where politicians dare not step in until they've been briefed by their spin doctors and are convinced that they are armed with everything needed to fend off the very tough hosts.  It's so well regarded although it's only on air between 6 - 9am on weekdays but has researchers and writers working on it around the clock.  It's also the one show the ruling class and the "decision makers" (I hate this dreadful phrase) listen to.

In short: The Today Programme doesn't do fluff;  it's the home of good old English snobbery.

Imagine my surprise when I was scrolling through my twitter feed this morning in an effort to glean what the ruling class were listening to and was confronted by this tweet:

Were you at the @justinbieber concert last night? How do you feel about him being 2 hours late on stage? We'll discuss at 0825 #r4today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) March 5, 2013

 Was the Today Programme trying to eat into Nick Grimshaw's audience by attract pre-teen girls to their show by reporting the shenanigans of asexual Canadian singing haircut?  No.  It turns out, yummy mommies and their little Poppies and Sophies of poshest Hertfordshire had been kept waiting for - depending on who you talk to -  between forty minutes to two hours.  I gather a lot of them got in touch with the programme to lament "this young man's lack of manners".

I guess normal service resumes tomorrow at the Today Progamme and it's back to the Westminster gossip.  That's an opportunity missed.  We could have dragged this show this century reality TV and general vacuousness.  Oh well ...

Nathi Blose R264000 monthly salary fail

Credit: Timeslive

I'm not sure what I should file this one under.

The story is that a car driven by the chauffeur son of a KwaZulu-Natal member of provincial legislature, Nathi Blose was involved in an accident and was written off as a result.

But the biggest part of the story - which seems to have been overlooked by everyone - including the journalists who wrote the story is that chauffeurs for KZN provincial legislature members earn R264 000 per month (even if that's an annual package, it's still extraordinarily high for a driver).  I'm guessing it's a misprint and that slip through the editorial net.  But what is is that nobody has contacted the newspaper to enquire if the figure is accurate otherwise they would have offered correction.  The alternative is that nobody thought it's anything out of the ordinary and that's truly scary.

If journalists and consumers of news think there's nothing wrong with squandering our tax money then we're really doomed.

Let's ogle a dead girl, why don't we?

Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of The Sun newspaper, shocked everyone over the weekend when he hinted that the days of Page 3 may be coming to an end.

What he didn't tell us was that he was moving it to the front page and to spice things up will now include recently deceased models and alliterated details of their death.  Yes, when everyone was shocked by yesterday's news that Oscar Pistorius had fatally shot his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, The Sun only saw an

TMZ milking the Pristorius story like there's no tomorrow

When news broke this morning that Paralympian Oscar Pistorius had shot and killed his girlfriend, every news outlet in the world scrambled to put out some kind of story no matter how sketchy the details.

In this new digital age of journalism, the trick is to be the first (among the first) to report and have the rest of the publications to cite you as the source and give you a back link and get your hit count soaring.  It's traffic first and news second.  TMZ has taken this story a step further:  after updating new information as it

Reason 213521 the SABC should be flattened

  Journalism is back from the Christmas break.  And it's as informative and accurate as it was last year.  I suspect this is what it's COO was referring to when he assured everyone that he's the embodiment of leadership at it's best.

It's just a shame that after reading what journalism/leadership dispatched this evening, I have no idea who is making recovery, who spoke to it or who spent three weeks in hospital.