All News Channels Carry Jacob Zuma Announcing His New Cabinet

As expected, ANN7, eNCA and SABC News all carried Jacob Zuma announcing his new cabinet live from Pretoria. For many of the reporters and anchors, there was no such thing as a weekend as many of them worked both the inauguration and tonight's coverage.

I must say I am not liking Jacob Zuma developing the disgusting habit of US President Barack Obama in his inablity to start a press conference/media event on time, expecting the whole country to patiently wait until he is ready to speak. All news channels informed viewers at 6:30 pm, the scheduled start time, that things were running late (something viewers could see for themselves), but could offer no further details. Nonetheless, things started a few minutes after that.

On eNCA, Cathy Mohlahlana anchored coverage from their Hyde Park Studio along with Nickolaus Bauer live on the scene. They carried absolutely no ad breaks for the duration of their build up while Cathy hosted an in studio panel from about 6pm.

SABC News carried the event live as well, but, ironically, the state-run news channel provided the poorest coverage of the event, with Peter Ndoro promptly starting the scheduled 7pm Prime Time Bulletin that is simulcast on SABC 3. The excellent Vuyo Mvoko did do a live report from the location, but was cut short due to time constraints.

On ANN7, Between the Lines Anchor Asanda Magaqa anchored along with Senior Political correspondent Hajra Omarjee. For Asanda it has been a particularly long day, having anchored her show live this morning at 9am, and then doing the coverage this evening. Hajra did a full, in depth analysis of the new show on her Prime Time show, Political Edge with a full panel, including a call-in from DA Spokesperson Mmusi Maimane and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula.

Black Finance Minister 
One of the bigger newsbits coming out from the new cabinet is the new Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, the first black Finance Minister in South Africa. This was mentioned on both ANN7 and eNCA. On ANN7, it was brought up as a first black Finance Minister, but within a few minutes Hajra Omarjee "corrected" the discussion, stating that Trevor Manuel was the first "black" Finance Minister (in a side note, Indian Pravin Gordon also qualifies as "black" in South Africa's racial classification, so this should have been a none issue). eNCA just mentioned Nene as the first Black "African" Finance Minister, avoiding any mistatements (though this can be contested as a coloured Trevor Manuel, it could be argued, is as African as Nene).