Mmegi: A newspaper of innumerable awards and honours (Part 2)
Lesang Maswabi | Tuesday August 20, 2024 09:03
She would soon be followed by then Acting Business Editor, Mpho Maine-Oliphant, who was recruited by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to anchor their political magazine programme, Newsline, of the early 1990s.
Maine-Oliphant would later join one of SA’s key State Owned Enterprises (SOE), Portnet to become the Executive Communications manager. Sometime in 1997, yours truly would be headhunted by one of SA’s top advertising agencies to become Art Director in their Creative Department. This was after I had earlier stints at The Agency and Herdbouys & McCann Errickson agencies during vacations as a creative trainee from 1994 to 1996. Trainer of trainers
It is through its reputable stature and achievement over the years that the Mmegi media house would be sought after by various local, regional, and international academies and organisations as a media reference point or centre of excellence, where trainers (experts) were picked from to conduct training in the region. In 2001, the Netherlands Institute of Southern Africa (NiZA) in conjunction with Southern Africa’s Media Defence Fund (SAMDEF) sent yours truly to train two of Lesotho’s newspapers, The Public Eye and The Mirror on aspects of newspaper production. It is the same NiZA that would identify then Mmegi Printing Manager, Sydney Brandt, to commission a number of printing presses in Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania in Southern Africa. It is the same Brandt that the Botswana government’s Ministry of Transport and Communications would engage to commission their new printing press.
As far back as the early 1992, the newspaper had been sought after by US-based Cleveland University for a student exchange programme that led to receiving their intern, Kathy Moore. Moore was a third-year International Affairs student then.
Around the same time, yours truly would attend one of MISA’s first training courses that they had co-sponsored with UNESCO and Apple Centre in Windhoek, Namibia. It was at the same course that a MISA logo design competition was staged, whereupon I would scoop 2nd prize award. A year later in 1993, I would enroll for the annual Weekly Mail training program in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Advancement of technology and achievements
One of the key production departments, Graphics, has evolved over the years with changing trends in newspaper production. From the traditional use of vintage softwares like PageMaker, QuarkXPress and Freehand for layout, we have moved with the times to adopt the far-advanced and cloud-based software Adobe creative suite. The Adobe InDesign has been a game changer, as it allowed team members to be creative in their jobs and produce the best designs in the country. Mmegi transcended from a local server called “Public” to the modern Content Management System (CMS), which is cloud based. It serves as an engine of producing the newspapers as all the production department are linked to it and has reduced human interactions that has resulted in limiting conflicts that often arose during production nights. A photographer is able to send photographs without moving from their workstations, while reporters upload their articles from the comfort of not only their desks but homes too.
Over the years, Graphics has attracted the best talent and produced some of the most creative designers who are now working at other publications while others went out to establish their own businesses.
Graphics’ vision and mission is to see the department rising higher to overcome challenges posed by social media and competition from other media houses, by providing high-end creative designs for Mmegi. Despite the workload and pressure, the department strives to meet deadlines, working closely with other production departments. Graphics department is the engine room of production, and with the right tools, support and wellbeing, the sky has been the limit.
*This article forms part of the celebrations of Mmegi’s 40th anniversary. This is the second and final part of the article.