Thomas Johnson - The Blog

In Daily Maverick  Tiara Walters wrote  "200,000-plus wild animals slaughtered in Table Mountain National Park by Cape Town cats each year"   about a  journal paper  by  University of Cape Town  FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology researchers .  In 2010 John Yeld wrote a similar article in the Cape Argus : “Cape Town's moggies are having a significant effect on the city's wildlife, killing – at a conservative estimate – somewhere between 3.9 million and 5.9 million animals each year.” It was about UCT Master's student Sharon George’s thesis in which she described her survey of 78 cats, using GPS, in Cape Town suburbs from which she extrapolated the number of domestic cats kills in the Cape Town metro. Robert Simmons was George’s supervisor and wrote a paper about it. The World of Bird's Walter Mangold responded disagreeing with aspects of her findings.  I also wrote – Yeld replied to me but my letter wasn't publis...

South Africa owes a huge debt to Mark Heywood. As co-founder of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) with Zackie Achmat, he forced government to provide treatment for HIV/AIDS sufferers that then president Thabo Mbeki’s denialism had denied them. Lately, he’s editor of Maverick Citizen, a section of Daily Maverick (DM). DM is largely an opinion site with professional writers and unpaid op-ed contributors (in 2016 they published one of mine). In 2017 it formed investigative unit Scorpio , which in partnership with amaBungani broke the Gupta Leaks emails story. But news and investigative reporting is secondary to its mission.  Daily Maverick had the potential to be South Africa’s leading news and analysis independent in the style of the Mail & Guardian of a decade and more ago, taking over the mantle from Sunday Times which damaged its reputation through unethical and unprofessional conduct. After 2017, coincidentally the time it discontinued readers’ comments...

William Saunderson-Meyer is a syndicated columnist for the Weekend Argus, The Citizen, Politicsweb and others. He writes the Jaundiced Eye column. His position is soft liberal, centre-right, typical of progressive white supporters of the DA. This group, which includes white intellectuals, grandly consider themselves defenders of democracy, during and after apartheid. Like his ilk, his columns are anti-ANC.   Being them, there is much to agree with him. Written in high-dudgeon outrage of many columnists, his analyses are superficial.   In that he’s similar to most of South African opinion and analyses, which is common place and poor. I didn’t read him regularly until I started reading Politicsweb in 2016 (disclosure: I no longer read it ). I never gave him much thought except he was inoffensive and run-of-the-mill. While I agreed with his sentiment about the ANC, left and government, the majority of his writing as a political columnist, I noticed often his fact...