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Jan 13, 2025 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | William Bird
FREE SPEECH OP-ED Mark Zuckerberg seems to be using a compelling freedom of expression argument not to deepen and protect freedom of expression, but to weaponise it instead. The announcement last week by Mark Zuckerberg about changes to the Meta platforms, first being rolled out in the US, has been widely criticised. They come while credible news media are being subjected to ongoing attacks, most commonly from Elon Musk, but also Donald Trump. Don't want to see this?
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | William Bird
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES OP-ED We are behind almost everyone in the world in switching from analogue to digital. Our performance here is only slightly worse than our efforts to ensure universal access to cheap, fast, reliable internet. Our news media sector is facing the most extraordinary challenges just to keep afloat.
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Jul 4, 2024 | 
tucson.com | Byrd Baylor |Gloria Knott |William Bird
After a brief hiatus, #ThisIsTucson's Summer Reading Challenge is back — and it might be the best one yet. If you've been a #ThisIsTucson reader for a while, you might know that the news organization, which is the Arizona Daily Star's sister site, curates a reading list most summers, centered around local authors and books with topics relevant to our area.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
thisistucson.com | Gloria Knott |William Bird
After a brief hiatus, #ThisIsTucson's Summer Reading Challenge is back â and it might be our best one yet. If you've been a #ThisIsTucson reader for a while, you might know that we curate a reading list most summers, centered around local authors and books with topics relevant to our area. This year, we've teamed up with the lovely people at Tucson-loving shop Why I Love Where I Live to put together the ultimate summer reading list, packed with more than two dozen reads.
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Mar 6, 2024 | 
news24.com | William Bird
Through a textual analysis of IOL's piece on News24 journalist Karyn Maughan, William Bird shows how the attack piece is ridiculous, does not hold up to the Press Code and undermines journalism. It's hard to know quite where to begin with the piece widely publicised across IOL platforms and social media accounts, that asks the question, Is Karyn Maughan South Africa's Leni Riefenstahl?
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Jul 15, 2023 | 
officeinsight.com | William Bird
AHF Products®, a leader in commercial flooring solutions, has announced it is partnering with William M. Bird to represent the company’s comprehensive commercial flooring portfolio under the AHF Contract® brand. “Aligning ourselves with strong partners in distribution like William M. Bird is essential to our growth across our business, and this is especially true for the commercial segment,” said Fred Reitz, Vice President-Commercial, AHF Products®.
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Jul 4, 2023 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | William Bird
The response to the judgment in the Moti vs amaBhungane case has thus far been overwhelmingly positive, and media organisations, ourselves included, have welcomed the outcome. The ruling was important as a vindication of the importance of media freedom, of the need for journalists to protect their sources, to disallow efforts that seek to abuse the court system and to highlight the importance of journalists exposing wrongdoing. This piece by amaBhungane sets out the key issues well.
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Jul 4, 2023 | 
news24.com | William Bird
Following amaBhungane's victory over the Moti group on Monday, William Bird writes that when the media are unfairly challenged, we need to ensure that justice prevails. On 3 July 2023, amaBhungane achieved a significant court victory over the Moti Group (Mazetti). The victory is significant and serves to remind us of the critical importance not just of media freedom and due process, but also serves as a hard lesson to those who seek to muzzle the media.
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Jun 4, 2023 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | William Bird
William Bird is the director of Media Monitoring Africa, Ashoka and a Linc Fellow. The Moti Group’s case against amaBhungane matters to every person in South Africa. If we let the interdict stand, whistle-blowers will be exposed to greater risk and the job of investigative journalists will be even harder. The recent interdict against amaBhungane by the Moti Group raises three critical issues. First, a travesty of justice.
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Feb 19, 2023 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | William Bird
Here we are again. The SABC is in crisis, one entirely manufactured by Parliament’s portfolio committee on communication and the President of South Africa. It’s not just the SABC though. South Africa, it seems, is caught in a crisis spiral where seemingly the only things we are good at are being in crises, and mitigating them. It might be comforting for the government to always operate in a crisis these days, as it seems impossible for it to act without one. See Eskom, for an example.
