Oscar Pistorius to join other fallen sporting heroes when sentenced over Reeva Steenkamp’s death

In happier times ... South Africa's Olympic sprint star Oscar Pistorius and his former model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

Editor-in-chief of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian news organisation Chris Roper said the Pistorius case had forced South African newspapers to embrace the immediacy of online journalism while at the same time reinforcing its importance worldwide.

“Competition for Pistorius mindshare is what finally broke journalism here in South Africa,” he said. “It forced local media outlets to come to terms with how the consumption patterns of readers, viewers and listeners have been changing over the past few years. Thanks to the immediacy fostered by the internet, media organisations can only own a breaking news story for a few seconds.

“News organisations are going to have to change, if they haven’t already, the way they think about the life cycle of stories, so we’ll see more, and more diverse, news sources in the future.”

But while the ability of journalists to deliver instantaneous updates on proceedings to millions of followers on social media for the first time in history gave the Pistorius case viral interest, there is a school of thought that it also served to over-inflate its importance.