ANN CROTTY: A rethink on results reporting
Perhaps we should think of independent media as a social good, rather than a free-market good
A few years ago, when the JSE announced that listed companies would only be required to publish a short-form summary of their results in newspapers, it felt to me that objections from the print media were a little self-serving."That’s life, get on with it," was surely the more appropriate response.Now it seems to me the objections were prescient. It was the first major blow to print media’s business model.In effect, the requirement to publish financial results in an English-language daily newspaper and in a daily of one other language, which dated back to 1967, amounted to a subsidy of approximately R200m/year.The industry has struggled to replace this advertising income just as it has struggled to deal with the Internet’s competitive threats.Perhaps it’s time to start thinking of news media as a social good, which has social benefits, rather than a mere common or garden free-market good, like toothpaste or washing powder.In which case it would be time to consider providing some pro...
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