#Guptagate dominates headlines

20 March 2016 - 16:59 By Agency Staff
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Nearly two-thirds of all news stories in South Africa in the past week were about the controversy over the Gupta family and their links to government appointments, media monitoring company ROi Africa said on Sunday.

Indian businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta, and Sahara director, Duduzane Zuma at the New Age Newspaper's offices in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa on 4 March 2011.
Indian businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta, and Sahara director, Duduzane Zuma at the New Age Newspaper's offices in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa on 4 March 2011.
Image: Gallo Images/City Press/Muntu Vilakazi

“There is only one story dominating South Africa across all media and that is #GuptaGate,” managing director Tonya Khoury said.

More than a third of all stories tackled the Guptas directly, while the rest were related to Gupta issues, such as those about President Jacob Zuma’s question and answer session in Parliament or articles referencing former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The possible downgrading of South Africa by ratings agency Moody’s garnered only a 2.97% slice of the news coverage.

A similar level of interest in the Gupta scandal was seen on social media platforms. 

“More than 70% of our conversation related to the recent events,” said Khoury.

“This dramatically and sadly completely overshadowed good news stories like [sprinter] Wayde van Niekerk, Miss World 2016 and Miss South Africa, getting a total conversation of just over 1%.”

Internationally, US electioneering continues to dominate global headlines – with most of the interest in Donald Trump.

Coverage of Easter got a 14% slice of coverage and St Patrick’s Day just less than that.  

Source: News24

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