About Bayanda Mzoneli
Bayanda Mzoneli is a public servant. He writes in his personal capacity.
I have been invited to be a contributing author on Spoken. I am told Spoken is the community of bloggers. It is aimed at adding to the currently existing community of bloggers such as Thought Leader blogs, The Times blog and City Press blogs.
The difference with Spoken is that it is open to a wider range of contributors. It is also not associated with any of the currently existing newspapers like the other blogging communities. The articles posted on Spoken can thus be utilised by the authors or with their permission on other media.
I have also been asked to recruit authors for Spoken. The authors are free to write in the language of their choice about any subject. However, Spoken, as a new blogging community wishes to establish its own standards and practices. The quality of contributions will therefore be scrutinised. Obviously, quality would be a subjective issue for those scrutinising the material. But I say, if they can take a not so good writer like me, then definitely a lot of people will qualify to their standards.
Their scrutiny has more to do with being ethical and not infringing other people’s rights. It is to ensure that Spoken does not become a platform for abuse. The contributors will be allowed to post on their own after about 3 initial posts. After that there will be continuous monitoring of author contributions. There is also a provision for readers to report abuse.
Clearly Spoken has a potential to grow into a serious media force. If this happens, there is going to be a true reconfiguration of the public discourse in South Africa, as the monopoly of those associated with the newspapers will be eroded.
Since I own my independent blog, from now onwards I am going to be posting simultaneously on both www.spoken.co.za and on http://blog.bayanda.co.za
Those who wish to become contributing authors to Spoken should send their articles to admin@spoken.co.za They respond within 48 hours at most. Once your contribution is there, you can invite friends and family to visit the website to read your contributions.
Watch this space….!