Dear Media, Malema is no longer the ANCYL leader

Picture credit: twitter.com/ewnupdates

UPDATE: 29/09/2012

David Bullard, somebody with a better command of words and an intimate knowledge of newsrooms, has put it better than I could.

"They (the media) know that no Juju will mean they have to search around for something else that will sell papers and that's such an effort."

Read the rest of his biting piece on Politicsweb.  Bookmark that link and check it every Thursday for new thought provoking columns from a writer who knows how to use words and pulls no punches. 

Somebody need to tell the media that Julius Malema is no longer the ANCYL leader.  Remember when his appeal against his expulsion was rejected, that was the day he seized to be.  Why then is he still being given the airtime and referred to as "a leader"?

He turned up at the Lonmin mine this afternoon to use the tragedy further his political career  show his solidarity with the grief stricken striking miners.  And he just couldn't resist the temptation to take pot shots at those who expelled him from his beloved ANC.  He actually blamed President Jacob Zuma for his failure to lead and Cyril Ramaphosa for being rich while employees at the mine where he has a stake are having to make do with low wages. Oh, the imperialists didn't escape his wrath too.  And all the world media was there to catch every syllable and every frame of his diatribe.

And therein lies the problem.  He's constantly referred to as an expelled ANCYL leader or a youth leader and I'm assuming this is to give his view some validity or a sense that they're somehow representative of the youth of this country.  But I think it's just the media trying to hold on to their cash cow.  I used to work for a news website and everytime you feature a Julius Malema story you were guaranteed to double your traffic that day.  If we were in the USA TMZ would update use about his every move, who he's dating, where he partied last night, what he's eating etc.

We get it.  He shoots from the hip, he's a one man quote machine and he gives good copy.  But he doesn't occupy any office, not anymore.  You'll do well to find another cash cow.  And to use the mourning miners for political capital and profit is just shameful.