DDI News 6 December 2013

It is with great sadness that we heard of former president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s passing on 5 December at the age of 95. He was a legend and an inspiration to our country, cushioning our lives calm, peace and love. Hamba kahle Tata Mandela!

DATA DRIVEN INSIGHT: Eskom CEO Brian Dames Resigns

During the last week Eskom’s media coverage increased significantly, with 101 articles. On 5 December alone, 35 articles mentioned its CEO, Brian Dames’ resignation, citing ‘family reasons’. 67% of the coverage came from local media, which also focused on the Kulisile coal talks and Eskom’s R12 billion profit.

The headlines covering Dames’ resignation were, however, not that flattering, with some of them implying negative connotations like:

·         Eskom CEO Resigns as South African Utility Risks Blackouts

·         Brian Dames of SA’s Eskom to spend more time with family

·         Eskom fears resurface as Dames resigns

·         OPINION: Why did Eskom’s boss quit?

·         Eskom CEO Resigns as South African Power Utility’s Profit Drops

It is not surprising that 77% of this week’s coverage came from South African media. The 3% coverage in both Italy and Quatar media was, however, a surprise.

DATA DRIVEN INSIGHT: E-tolling the highways of Gauteng

Earlier this week the e-tolling system in Gauteng officially started and was met with predominantly negative media reports and calls for boycotts.

Most of the articles this week appeared on 3 December, the date when the system went live in Gauteng. On 29 November various questions were raised in the media regarding prosecutions for not registering for e-tags. The Freedom Front also launched court challenges against e-tolling, which lead to the higher starting point of the graph.

On 2 December the Freedom Front’s court appeal was heard, but failed, which lead to more publicity, along with negative comments in general about e-tolls in the media. From December 4^th/5^th coverage centred on the effect of e-tolling – people using back roads instead of main roads and increased usage of the Gautrain. The stakeholders mentioned the most in relation to e-toll in media coverage are:

DATA DRIVEN INSIGHT: Remgro and Rupert: Two R’s to take note of

Johann Rupert, chairman of Richemont and Remgro is widely regarded as the richest man in South Africa (by Forbes). This is one of the issues that received coverage that was relevant to  Remgro during the past week up and till close of business on Thursday. Since Monday, 2 December, 82 articles were tracked mentioning Remgro. Issues that were focused on include:

·         Rupert as South Africa’s richest businessman (Forbes)

·         Rupert making predictions on the economy

·         Rupert mentioned in relation to Richemont and Remgro’s results

·         Rupert lashing out at the ANC for red tape and corruption

·        Remgro’s planned purchase of Caxton

The most Remgro related publicity was generated on 2^nd December (98 items), the day on which the possible purchase of Caxton surfaced in the media. Coverage on the possible purchase of Caxtons, was mostly balanced, although some publications (like Volksblad of 3 December), insinuated that Remgro had a ‘secret plan’ with the South African media. CNBC Africa yielded most coverage, with 197 articles. The 3^rd December yielded 69 clips, mostly relating to Remgro’s AGM.

The bulk of publicity (96.8%) regarding Remgro was yielded by local media, with America (1.19%) and Italy (0.7%) following, as percentages of the 1175 items:

DATA DRIVEN INSIGHT: Fast and Furious actor, Paul Walker, killed in accident

We also had to say goodbye this week to actor Paul Walker who was killed tragically in a car accident on Saturday, 30 November. Since then, we have tracked 26065 media items that covered the story.  Over time the coverage was divided as follows:

Most publicity was generated on Monday, after the event, when most daily newspapers covered it for the first time. Most of Walker’s total media coverage came from the US, UK and Australia, as can be seen below:

227 Media clips were reported in South Africa.

Despite the fact that he died, the media coverage was mostly positive, focusing strongly on Paul’s good qualities, people honouring him and a heart-warming story of him that he bought an engagement ring secretly for a struggling war veteran (to get engaged to his now wife). The cast of Fast and Furious also released a special tribute video on Youtube that was used by several media outlets on 4 December.

Other coverage initially centred around the cause of death and later around the cause of the accident. Through that speculation was slightly tilted towards the negative, with factors like speed, drag racing and possible liquor being mentioned, as well as some rather strange conspiracy theories.

The strangest article by far was one in the Guardian Express (4 December) claiming that Walker was killed by an Obama Drone Strike.

Post the accident the driver of the car that Walker died in, Roger Rodas, was mentioned the most, alongside that of Walker. Other names that were mentioned regularly were Vin Diesel (5827) Tyrese Gibson (1704), Dwayne Johnson (802), Jordanna Brewster (922) and Michelle Rodrigues (740), who were all cast members of Fast and the Furious.

DATA DRIVEN INSIGHT: Nedbank Golf Challenge starts

The famous Nedbank Golf Challenge is taking place 3-8 December at Sun City. From Monday up and till 17:00 on 5 December, 607 clips were yielded mentioning the term “Nedbank Golf Challenge”. Most of this coverage was in American media (252), followed by South African (14). Players that received the most publicity so far are: