As a Joburger for four years, I revelled in being in the heart of the beast. Being in the commercial capital of the country, where all the really important decisions are made, is thrilling for a journalist. And,  for a twenty-something bar fly, the social whirl was just as fun. I loved that it was so cosmopolitan and that the races mixed so easily and gregariously in the work place and at party time. 

But then you grow up, become a one-house crime wave and get bored with hanging out at mega malls.

I’ve been watching The Times and Mail & Guardian online  and their disinterest in the rabid storm that is battering the whole country’s coast with curiosity today. Doubtless both web teams know about it as it’s all over Sapa and News24 and IOL are going to town on the rescue and storm damage stories. Both newspapers also have Cape Town and Durban staff so it’s not a manpower issue.

I’m hazarding a guess that the Joburg newsrooms feel it’s not very important as it’s not affecting Joburg. If it doesn’t happen in the Big Stink, then it’s not particularly exciting — and there be the rub.

I’ve lived in three cities since I left Joburg — Cape Town, Durban and East London — and have come to view Johannesburgers are rather blinkered and insular. "This is the real South Africa," I’ve heard Joburgers say (and in fact said it myself when I lived there).  Because of its wealth and pace, its crime and grime and the fact that it’s so intergrated, they believe the rest of the country is somehow "unreal", left behind.

Now that is the cry of la-la land, if ever I heard it. The rest of South Africa — where people struggle financially, where the races are still largely weary of each other and where lifestyle isn’t a swear word — is the real South Africa. It’s how most of us — about 40 million of us — live. And at the moment, there’s a terrific storm terrorising its citizens. That is in fact a story — even if it’s at the coast.    

I know that the Sunday Times has heard a rumour that there are people out there as they keep recycling stories from other papers for their splashes. Politics.web ran a story about the recycled public-service corruption report  that the Sunday Times ran with a couple of weeks back and I’ve noticed  two Daily Dispatch stories re-done by the Crimes in the past few months (one about the ANC food parcels given out in townships and rural villages before the elections and another about Transkei teenage girls being forced into marriage).

Come on, guys, you can do better than that. Once upon a time (and I know because I worked there), a story that had appeared in another paper didn’t get a sniff at a splash contender on the diary. 

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