Newspapers love creating “special reports” to harvest advertising dollars from those keen on getting exposure. While readers tend to ignore them, these supplements achieve the objective of the other interested parties – advertisers enjoy friendly editorial and the newspaper gets the shekels.
But sometimes it can all go horribly wrong. Like in the weekend’s edition of the London Financial Times newspaper which featured a six page “special report” on Investing in Gauteng. The supplement was heavily supported by SA advertisers including Brand South Africa and the Gauteng investment agency GEDA.
Those who wrote the copy quite clearly didn’t get the right memo. The main headline screams “Turmoil grips South Africa’s commercial heartland,” with a sub head reading “Investors face little respite…” The rest of the editorial in the supplement continues in the same vein. In a special report intended to attract money into SA? Ja-well-no-fine.
A good lesson in how to throw taxpayer money down the drain. In hard currency nogal.
