Not too late to reprieve Weekender

There’s no shame in admitting that you’ve made a mistake, and the board of BDFM will not go down in anyone’s estimation if they issue another statement admitting that they were wrong to kill The Weekender.

I am not sure what information, other than the recession, they took into account when they made their decision last week, but it seems to me they were mightily short-sighted.

Did they take into account the reputational damage to the company? Did they take into account customer loyalty to their brand? Did they take into account the contribution to press freedom and debate that was made by The Weekender?

The Weekender was much, much more than a newspaper to its readers. It raised the intellect of all South African society. It gave me an opportunity to be in the same auditorium as the greatest thinkers and politicians in this country.

I shall miss its debates and public lectures as much as I shall miss the excellent articles throughout the paper. I am now kicking myself that I missed the recent lecture by Planning Minister Trevor Manuel .

After attending most of The Weekender’s debates, I gave that one a miss as I had another engagement and I was sure there would be many more in the paper’s line-up that I would be attending.

What the debates gave us was unmediated access to people in the news. The paper was brave enough and clear-sighted enough to realise that its news space wasn’t large enough to accommodate the diverse range of views and information in society, so it found other ways to get that information to its readers.

I had just about given up on the South African media when The Weekender came along. I bought the first edition and was hooked. I have never missed a single edition.

Who is going to help me with my withdrawal symptoms?

Please reconsider your decision. While a board of any company should always consider its bottom line, the board of a newspaper should consider its responsibility to building a free society of committed citizens — and The Weekender did exactly that.

Sizwe Majola

Midrand