The inaugural Mennell Media Exchange, stylised #MMX14, was a resounding success despite being mainly put together by volunteers.

The conference, which was held over the 25th and 26th of July was held at The Forum in  Bryanston, Johannesburg.

The conference boasted a star studded and influential lineup of diverse speakers and presenters including comedian Loyiso Gola, online radiostation owner Gareth Cliff, eNCA Group News Editor Ben Said and the SABC's Digital News Editor, Izak Minnaar, among others.

Various eNCA personalities, including MD Patrick Conroy, East Africa bureau chief, Robyn Kriel, and Gareth Edwards all live tweeted (and retweeted) during the event.

The "Serious About Satire" session was headed up by the team behind eNCA's Late Night News with Loyiso Gola. Also speaking was Nick Dawes, who is the editor of The Mail and Guardian newspaper, who felt that he could've handled a certain controversial cartoon differently. Loyiso Gola stated that being black in South Africa makes it easier for you if you in the satire business, "The ANC feels we're with them because we're black, they don't feel Zapiro is with them." Chester Missing himself said "It gets on my moer when the media assume most politicians don't get the satirical point. Most of them play with me just fine thank you.."

The various challenges, especially from governments, faced by journalists in Africa was also a hot topic at the conference. News of the arrest of a Swazi journalist earlier was heavily sighed upon at the event.

The lively panel on African journalism also debated who 'counts' as African, who can tell Africa's stories, and for whom. Allister Sparks said a big problem faced by African news coverage is that it is just too dull.

David L. Smith, a journo who covers Africa also and was on the panel, also brought up some interesting points. These included that the SABC should be rivaling international news organisations like the BBC but doesn't due to their lack of political will, even though they have the talent to be much greater than they currently are. He also questioned why African radio stations are not global leaders even though radio is king on the continent when it comes to communications mediums.

Justine Limpitlaw from Wits University said that the one thing that helped to protect African journalists for a long time was that African governments weren't tech savvy enough to clamp down on journalists for a long while, which, unfortunately, is a decreasing trend and she called the increasing digital clampdowns from these governments "worrying,"

eNCA has invested more than R50 million in their eNCA Africa division, of which they have seen little return. The division uses and trains locals from the various African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe. On covering news from the continent, Robyn Kriel stated "To tell a good African story well, you've got to be on the ground or have networks on the ground, who you trust. There is no 'African story'. There are individual countries with their own stories."

An interesting topic that did arise at the conference was the commercial interests of news organisations. The amount of questions asked around the topic makes Patrick Conroy feel as if the business models and commercial interests of news organisations are "not fully understood" by people on the outside. He tweeted later in the day, " If you don't like the media's commercial model why not try and launch your own company without them. Let me know how it turns out." These statements are particularly powerful in a time when CNN, the "World News Leader" is facing harsh criticsim in the US for going into more "unscripted" shows that are more profitable for them.

These are just a few highlights if the overall event that is to become an annual event going forward. Overall, it was a great platform to highlight the universal issues facing journalists on the continent.