Because South Africa's mostly pathetic, unqualified, and tabloid pandering crop of so-called "entertainment journalists" are not doing their job, let TV with Thinus report facts: Isidingo actor Don Mlangeni HAS NOT BEEN FIRED from SABC3's soap Isidingo.
Daily Sun reported that Don Mlangeni, playing Zeb Matabane, has been fired.
Multiple, MULTIPLE publications picked up the tabloid report and went with it yesterday - zero of them digging back to find and verify the trurh from original sources, zero of them talking to pivotal, relevant executives (probably because they don't even have the deep contacts needed for this work), and all of them jumping gleefully on the wholly-ho wholly-wrong bandwagon to breathlessly "report"... well, essentially trash.
TV with Thinus didn't report anything. The only thing I do with trash is to throw it out when the bin is full.
So let TV with Thinus tell you that Don Mlangeni has not been fired from Isidingo.
Don Mlangeni has also not left Isidingo.
Don Mlangeni will continue to be in Isidingo, and Don Mlangeni will continue to work and appear as his character.
The tabloid tornado of utter sh*t reporting and litany of fake stories where fake trash is build upon more fake trash like a trash layer cake of common - because nobody in the hollow echo chamber cares to actually check with original sources - once again highlights the major problem(s) with entertainment journalism reporting in South Africa.
Sadly South Africa lacks accurate, decisive and fact-based original reporting, or original-sourced stories (from the television industry which is the subset within entertainment reporting which I try to cover diligently) - scared to do real stories, unable to find real news and largely untrained and unskilled in basic journalistic know-how.
Entertainment journalists are quick to go to events, drink and grab 'em goodie bags. Where are the stories afterwards? You see a trickle of the cesspool of so-called "entertainment journalists" and "columnists" who actually write or do anything. I know. I'm there. I see them. I read everything. And I'm constantly amazed at the bad or non-existent coverage of what passes for "entertainment stories" in South Africa.
The bulk of journalists covering the entertainment beat in South Africa in my opinion serves as an extension of PR companies' publicity machine - self-indulgent and extremely self-entitled so-called "journalists" in it for themselves; seemingly there to publish selfies with celebrities, to post "look where I was events", to twitter on social media instead of carefully crafting correct fact-based sentences for real publication of record articles and to listen and to ask relevant, informed questions during press conferences.
And let's not talk about the wholly running press releases and photos as is phenomenon - as if they're not really working for media institutions but for the companies who get uncritical coverage; serving not the reader and the public but corporations whose spin is passed on as "news".
South Africa largely sits with the entertainment and TV industry we have because our media and 4th estate covering it is so lame-ass weak, if not non-existent. When critical, accurate, in-time feedback exists within any industry, it gets better.
When you sit with a pandering press without backbone you get what we have.
Our industry struggles to get better because the reporting about it rarely consistently goes deeper than the superficial (and them mostly fake) fluff.
(Read the fake fluff elsewhere (and smile). Warning: When you read TV with Thinus you get no-spin truth and facts which might give you heartburn.)
