Netwerk24’s new decade: From the editor

We boast 3.4 million page views per day, the second highest among South African news services after News24's 5.9 million. Plus, Netwerk24 is profitable and has a sustainable business model. Our subscribers are willing to pay for quality content, and we are increasingly supplementing this with advertising revenue.

But what I am most proud of is Netwerk24's editorial team, which serves an insatiable news website and app 18 hours a day, seven days a week, where the news unfolds minute by minute on our users’ computers and cell phones. In addition, this team has been filling the pages of Die Burger, Beeld, and Volksblad for eight years already – six newspaper editions per day containing news, business, sports, and arts content, opinions, in-depth articles, profiles, photos, and graphics.

It is an editorial team that is on the major news scenes every day – in the field and in person, not trapped behind desks. Deployed nationwide during the recent election, there to take exclusive photos of Oscar Pistorius after his release from prison, there covering the Jagersfontein disaster after a mine dam collapsed, there for the Thabo Bester trial, the search for Joshlin Smith, the coverage of Markus Jooste's death and of  Jacques Freitag’s murder, the Enyobeni tavern tragedy in the Eastern Cape, the George disaster when a building collapsed, in Groblersdal where the Bittereinders and police clashed, in KwaZulu-Natal during the Nkandla dramas, the riots, and the floods. Even at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for South Africa's case against Israel. And of course, in France when the Springboks won the World Cup.

This is just a random look at news events this team has covered, but every day produces many such examples. Netwerk24 has just over a hundred editorial staff, with a healthy mix of youth and experience. Around 37% are between 50 and 65 years old, 30% are somewhere in their forties, 16% are in their thirties, and 17% in their twenties.

It is also a team that constantly adapts and leads the way digitally. Thus, Netwerk24 has been able to offer the following additions for subscribers over the past ten years (to name just a few): monthly audiobooks, short film dramas and documentaries, comedies, audio dramas, podcast series with personalities like Nataniël,  explainer video series with Bun Booyens, a Camino vlog that expanded into hiking tours with readers, advice in video or audio format on everything from ageing and mental health to financial matters, exercise, gardening and wine tasting. A dedicated group of subscribers does not skip a day without filling in the crosswords, Sudokus, and Word Flowers on Netwerk24. For cooking, there is the legendary Kook en Geniet's more than 700 recipes to which Netwerk24 subscribers have had digital access since the beginning of this year.

Not a year goes by without our journalists broadening their horizons. Recently, several of them became familiar faces on TV and can now be seen again on Wednesday evenings in the fourth season of "Wie’s Nuus met Netwerk24” on kykNET, with editorial staffer Mia Spies as the presenter.

With so much to do every day, Netwerk24 is a formidable and well-oiled machine where everyone must work together. There are reporters, photographers, videographers, and graphic artists under the leadership of seasoned news and section editors, but also rewriters, sub-editors, and proofreaders – quality controllers without whom we cannot do – the homepage editors and team that publish all the content, editorial staffers who manage special projects, and a blazing social media and audience development team.

And there is the essential support of our corporate, management, finance, and administrative colleagues, the technology team, human resources managers, marketers, and the advertising team, as well as the service call centre for subscribers and readers.

An integral part of our success is the Afrikaans magazines that have been part of Netwerk24's subscription offer since 2017: Huisgenoot, Sarie, Kuier, Tuis, Weg!, WegRy & Sleep, and Baba & Kleuter. A few years ago, the ATKV's Taalgenoot also joined our ranks as an e-publication, and more recently, the digital magazine Alles about devices, technology and anything under the sun and Son newspaper's e-publication.

But back to the news scene: This letter would not be complete without talking about Media24's proposed plan to no longer print Rapport and Beeld on paper. They will also no longer have PDF e-publications (which look just like the print newspaper) on Netwerk24. The same applies to Volksblad and Die Burger Oos-Kaap, which have only been available as e-publications since 2020. Although the core teams have done world-class work with these e-newspapers, PDFs are not a digital-first format for packaging news. It is also not the way most of our subscribers consume their news.

However, readers need not worry that they will no longer get their unique regional news. All the reporters have been working for Netwerk24 since 2016. The same stories, created by the same team of journalists in all the different regions, will still be there.

If you have read it on paper or in a PDF newspaper until now, there will now be other convenient ways. We will assist newspaper readers with this transition to special Beeld and Volksblad sections on Netwerk24 where readers who prefer it, can start their day informed with the most important regional content grouped neatly together. They will also be able to sign up for Beeld and Volksblad newsletters via email and continue to socialise on these titles' social media pages.

Rapport has its own team of journalists who currently create content for the printed newspaper. This content also appears on Netwerk24 under the distinctive red Rapport banner. Sundays are Rapport Day on Netwerk24, and this will continue, even if the newspaper no longer appears in print. Rapport's newsletter and social media pages will also continue.

We are delighted with Media24's announcement recently that no newspaper journalists will lose their jobs if the printed newspapers and PDFs are discontinued. A total of 66 journalists, spread across the Afrikaans News division, City Press, and Daily Sun, will then be retained. Their skills will be utilised within Netwerk24, News24, and the new free Daily Sun website, where their content will continue to live.

We look forward to working with Rapport's full team on new digital initiatives. Beeld and Volksblad's core production teams, who currently publish the printed newspapers, will especially strengthen our ranks of sub-editors and quality controllers.

Here is Netwerk24's commitment to the Afrikaans market: The quality and depth of our journalism is our greatest and foremost priority, and we are committed to continuing to improve it.

We work together with the technology team and experts on digital layout and packaging so that it becomes increasingly easier for subscribers to conveniently read, watch, and listen to the content they prefer.

While we go through a mourning period over the print era coming to an end, professional Afrikaans journalism is already in another survival battle (this is the way of life; change is the only constant). We now compete globally with large technology platforms and social media. The challenge is to ensure that our journalism is of such high quality and easily accessible that readers prefer and trust it as a news source.

Anyone serious about Afrikaans journalism must support us in this. We look forward to the next decade.