ATHANDIWE SABA and JEANNE VAN DER MERWE South Africa’s wave of service delivery protests is far greater than previously imagined with official police data revealing more than 3 000 protests in the past four years. Media24 Investigations used access to information law to ask the South African Police Service for official records showing service delivery… Read More »

JEANNE VAN DER MERWE and ATHANDIWE SABA SOUTH Africa’s exploding population has given birth to toddler boomtowns – and the most booming of them all is a South African border town. Musina, near the Zimbabwean border, has seen the biggest rise in children aged four and under over the past 10 years, official census data… Read More »

JEANNE VAN DER MERWE investigations@media24.com NEARLY R12 of every R100 generated by the South African economy is spent on paying for civil servants – nearly three times as much as Brazil. In the past financial year, our bureaucrats were responsible for costing more than 11% of SA’s gross domestic product, making the SA civil service… Read More »

ATHANDIWE SABA THE wealth gap among men and women in South Africa explodes the richer South Africans become with women making up only seven out of every 100 people who earn over R5m a year, tax statistics reveal. In fact, figures for the 2010 tax year, the latest available and compiled by the South African… Read More »

Kan ’n mens die temperatuur van die nasionale debat meet? Andrew Trench en Jeanne van der Merwe het die afgelope week deur duisende Twitter-boodskappe gewaad op soek na ’n antwoord. ’n Mens kan aan min dinge die laaste tyd dink wat die nasionale debat so volledig oorheers het as die sage oor Zuma se “spies”.… Read More »

ANDREW TRENCH and JEANNE VAN DER MERWE Last Monday morning as South Africans argued over whether artist Brett Murray’s picture of President Jacob Zuma with his bits on display was protected free speech or dignity-destroying vitriol, M24i embarked on a unique project to track the mood of the country through the social network. We quickly… Read More »

by ANDREW TRENCH I had some fun this week with the raging debate over Brett Murray’s artwork. It provided the perfect opportunity to have a go using something called “sentiment analysis” to get some insight into an unfolding story. Right! What the heck is “sentiment analysis” and how on earth could this possibly be used… Read More »