Impact of Covid 19 on Media Sustainability

https://zimbabwe.misa.org

online, has a simplified form with much shorter articles and an unfussy, unambitious layout (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Example of layout of The Continent

The e-paper is a high-tech product and can have varying degrees of skeuomorphism. At the other end
of the tech spectrum is the print newspaper or magazine, a product of the industrial age involving
capital-intensive equipment in a manufacturing and distribution operation. The common wisdom is
that the migration online of newspapers is inevitable. Hence the news that South Africa’s trailblazing,
digital-only Daily Maverick news platform was to launch a weekly print edition, Daily Maverick 168
(the number of hours in the week), was met with some amazement.114The Daily Maverick, born in
2009, has partnered with retail chain Pick n Pay to distribute the magazine, with a cover price of
R20.00 but freely available to shoppers with loyalty cards of the chain, on Saturday mornings. Daily
Maverick 168 officially launched on Saturday September 26.115
Publisher and CEO Styli Charalambous says the first lesson in the organisation’s success was that
overcoming a sense of victimhood was important in realising that innovation and experimentation
was the only way for the organization to succeed, but they “lacked the methodology and the concepts

114. T. M. O. Reporter, “Daily Maverick 168: Renowned Digital Publisher to Launch Print Title,” The Media Online (blog), August 6,
2020, http://themediaonline.co.za/2020/08/daily-maverick-168-renowned-digital-publisher- to-launch-print-title/.
115. Daily Maverick, “Editorial: The Next Generation: Daily Maverick 168,” Daily Maverick, September 25, 2020, https://www.
dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-25-the-next-generation-daily-maverick-168/.

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