An absence of bravery defines Maimane – on issues of free speech, individual liberty and on tough policy decisions

Gareth van Onselen speaks to veteran SA newsman, who says journalists aiming to excel must know their subject and know their readers. He is known as an outstanding columnist but still relishes the feeling of ‘getting a good story first’

Free to read: In the amoral universe of local politics, socialism (unlike colonialism) does not seem to have to answer for the dreadfully bloody effect it has had, over many years, on countries and people around the world

SOEs continue to lavish huge bonuses on senior management, despite the fact that many of them have suffered major losses in recent years and have needed government bailouts

News of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s unseating has been welcomed in some quarters. But it invites uncomfortable parallels with SA’s own political malaise

The veteran parliamentarian, who lashed generations of Nat MPs and ministers with her quick wit, would be surprised at how a lecture in her name has become a platform for ANC politicians

This will go down as the year in which the media became the news and had its objectivity questioned — often because the Guptas’ machinations sucked many journalists into the political swamp

You would struggle to find a richer, fuller and better understanding of politics today than that which our history can give us — but none of the historical references that are made is inquisitorial or critical

SA’s national anthem is an ode to contradiction: a plea for an end to tyranny; a mask presenting that tyranny as freedom. It’s a Band-Aid slapped on the wound of division. And it’s banal

Which came first: President Jacob Zuma or the environment that produced him?