''Independent Online'', popularly known as ''IOL'', is a news website based in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
.
IOL serves the online versions of a number of South African newspapers, including ''
The Star
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', ''
Pretoria News
''Pretoria News'' is a daily English-medium newspaper established in 1898 in South Africa's capital city Pretoria. It is distributed in the Tshwane Metropolitan area. ''Pretoria News'' covers a range of local news, as well as national and inter ...
'', ''
The Daily Voice'', ''
Cape Times
The ''Cape Times'' is an English-language morning newspaper owned by Independent News & Media SA and published in Cape Town, South Africa.
the newspaper had a daily readership of 261 000 and a circulation of 34 523. By the fourth quarter of ...
'', ''
Cape Argus
The ''Cape Argus'' is a daily newspaper co-founded in 1857 by Saul Solomon and published by Sekunjalo in Cape Town, South Africa. It is commonly referred to as ''The Argus''.
Although not the first English-language newspaper in South Afric ...
'', ''Weekend Argus'', ''
The Mercury'', ''
Post
Post or POST commonly refers to:
*Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries
**An Post, the Irish national postal service
**Canada Post, Canadian postal service
**Deutsche Post, German postal service
**Iraqi Post, Ira ...
'', ''
Diamond Fields Advertiser
The ''Diamond Fields Advertiser (DFA)'' is a daily newspaper published in Kimberley, South Africa, founded on 23 March 1878.
The early days
The earliest paper on the Diamond Fields was a weekly called the ''Diamond Field'', published from 1 ...
'', ''
Isolezwe
''Isolezwe'' is a Zulu-language newspaper launched in 2002 by Independent News & Media. It is published daily in Durban, South Africa, in the tabloid format. Editor Kiki Ntuli describes their target market as "the modernising Zulu ... meone ...
'', ''Daily Tribune'', ''Sunday Tribune'', ''The Independent on Saturday'', and ''
The Sunday Independent''.
Corporate affairs
Ownership
Sekunjalo Investments
Sekunjalo Investment Holdings (parent company of African Equity Empowerment Investments) is a black owned South Africa-based private equity firm specializing in acquisitions, PIPEs, and buyouts. It has principal operations in publishing, Int ...
owns 55% of the company via its subsidiary Sekunjalo Independent Media, the
Public Investment Corporation
The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) is a South African state-owned entity (SOCNational Government of South Africa''Public Investment Corporation SOC Ltd (PIC)'' on www.nationalgovernment.co.za) with R2.339 trillion (USD 145 Billion) o ...
of South Africa owns 25%, and two Chinese
state-owned enterprises (China International Television Corporation and the
China Africa Development Fund) own the remaining 20% of the newspaper.
China International Television Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of state broadcaster
China Central Television (CCTV). Before 2013, IOL was owned by the
Independent News & Media.
IOL regularly distributes Chinese
state media content.
Management
Vasantha Angamuthu is the CEO of Independent Online, and Lance Witten is Editor.
Reaction
In 2018,
Reporters Without Borders reported that an IOL columnist was forced out after publishing a column condemning the
persecution of Uyghurs
The Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as genocide. Since 2014, the Chinese government, under the a ...
.
According to ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'', IOL "often engages in '
information laundering
Information laundering is the surfacing of news, false or otherwise, from unverified sources into the mainstream. In advancing disinformation in such a way that makes it accepted as ostensibly legitimate information, information laundering resemble ...
' designed to make sentiment appear homegrown, says Herman Wasserman at the
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...
. For instance, it will run a Chinese news-agency story on the biolab conspiracy, then get a left-wing student leader to write an article expressing concern about the supposed biolabs. Chinese news agencies will use that to write about how South Africans are worried, thus manufacturing a 'story' out of nothing at all."
See also
*
List of newspapers in South Africa
This is a list of newspapers in South Africa.
In 2017, there were 22 daily and 25 weekly major urban newspapers in South Africa, mostly published in English or Afrikaans. According to a survey of the South African Audience Research Foundatio ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
South African news websites
Daily newspapers published in South Africa
Online newspapers published in South Africa
Mass media in Cape Town