Beating around the Bosch

with

Dear Reader,

“Print is dying” has become our mantra. So, it only made sense that, last week, the journalism department arranged for our class to visit one of the biggest print production operations in Southern Africa. 

Novus Holdings started as a family business in Paarl over one hundred years ago, but after it burnt down, it found a new home in the industrial part of Paarden Eiland. What some of us (like our own editor, Eugene) thought would be a slightly bigger (and functional) version of the printer in the journalism department, turned into a 2 hour walk through an enormous factory – ceilings over ten metres high, and machines the size of double story houses, capable of printing up to 52 000 copies per hour… which is roughly 52 000 more than our in-house printer is currently capable of.

Bales of paper, most weighing over a tonne, towered above us (the paper is so tightly wound that a single split in the bale’s sheath would cause it to explode – or so we were told).

Tabloid papers containing the coming week’s best deals at various stores are the factory’s most volatile secrets – a premature leak would cause havoc in the market as competitors would scramble to adjust prices in time.

Novus prints a bit of everything, from Pick n Pay’s brown paper bags and Coke can labels to car magazines, paperback copies of Percy Jackson and Babylonstoren year calendars… but newspapers have become a marginalised product, it seems.

It is ironic to think that the very reason print has grown to such a monstrous size has, itself, fallen by the wayside. There are a few brave publications that made the counterintuitive move to start their print versions recently; Daily Maverick started their print edition during Covid and it still circulates today. I like to think that reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning might come back into fashion. If corduroy made it back into the mainstream all the way from the 70’s, surely newspapers can too. 

With production for the SMF Magazine starting this week, it is very soon that our articles will become a tiny piece of this grand operation. It is intimidating, but exciting that a small piece of journalism will show face in a print factory – something that might become a relic if print really does become a thing of the past.

Nicola Amon, newsletter editor

Visual of the Week

📸Some BTS from SMF News’ Ubaid Abrahams:

I got this story without having any visuals, because the competition has already passed. I had to think on my feet, so I got Anika du Plessis to come to our building so that I can set up a “scene” to get some amazing visuals.

And within 3 minutes I managed to take this shot, capturing Anika in her “thinking state”.

Read the story here

📚Good reads from SMF News this week📚

Dennesig residents frustrated by lack of municipality communication about road work

Residents of the Dennesig neighbourhood have expressed their frustrations over a lack of communication from Stellenbosch Municipality regarding municipal road works. Nkululeko Ndlovu spoke to a student living in the Dennesig neighbourhood on the construction project which commenced on 12 August.

Drama group highlights the role of art in mental wellness 

An event hosted by the applied theatre honours group from Stellenbosch University’s drama department, in collaboration with the university’s centre for student counselling and development (CSCD), sought to highlight the role of art as a resource for nurturing mental wellness. Amy Lindstrom spoke to Elmarie Kruger, a senior counselling psychologist at the CSCD, on the impact art has on mental health.

Grafte sink weer na rekord reënval

Onlangse swaar reën het oënskynlik veroorsaak dat die nuwer grafte in die Stellenbosch-omgewing ineensak. Antoinette Steyn het by professor Ailsa Hardie-Pieters, medeprofessor van grondkunde aan die Universiteit Stellenbosch (US), gehoor hoe die swaar reën grafte beskadig en wat daaromtrent gedoen kan word.

🎶What we’re listening to:

Word of the Week

Selcouth [sel-kooth]

Odd, unusual, or extraordinary; peculiar

“The passing of time can transform a commodity into a selcouth relic.”