The Cape Jewish Chronicle (CJC), a small but active news organisation that was deeply affected by the Covid-19 lockdown, is aiming to hold its own in the aftermath of 2020.
This was according to Desrae Saacks, the newly appointed editor of the CJC, who said that the pandemic pushed the publication in a direction it was already working towards.
“When [Covid-19] came, we actually had to stop printing, but we were already going towards an online presence,” said Saacks. “But I really do want to bring the print presence back alongside the online.”
The official logo of the Cape Jewish Chronicle. PHOTO: Supplied/Cape Jewish Chronicle
The CJC, which started in November 1984, is a monthly publication focused on themes pertinent to the Jewish community, according to Saacks. She told MatieMedia that the CJC reaches roughly 7 000 households across Cape Town, as well as readers in Gauteng, the United States of America, Australia and Israel.
Regaining financial footing
Despite changes in the business model of the publication due to the pandemic, it remains free to the public, said Saacks. The publication mainly relies on funding from readers on a voluntary basis, supplemented by commercial advertising revenue. Having moved online, however, the CJC incurs fewer costs now.
“There’s a voluntary annual subscription, which doesn’t decide whether you do or don’t get [access to the paper],” elaborated Saacks.
The CJC model was impacted by the decline in commercial revenue coming in from advertisers, according to Saacks. “A lot of organisations and commercial advertisers were getting less [revenue] in, and temporarily stopped putting stuff in our paper […] so [the newspaper] got a lot smaller due to Covid-19,” she said.
As a result of this, Saacks has looked to the stories within the publication as a starting point for recovery. “Now, I’m putting in a lot more, because we’re online and it’s not like each piece of paper and each printed line is costing us. So I am trying to build up interesting content to draw people in,” said Saacks.
Desrae Saacks, editor-in-chief of the Cape Jewish Chronicle. PHOTO: Supplied/Cape Jewish Chronicle
Keeping the spirit of the paper alive
Speaking on the value of print publication, Saacks explained that the passive readership garnered from physical copies is a unique benefit of the print medium.
“It’s lying around in the house, and everyone from the kids to the grandparents to the domestic workers — very often we get adverts from domestic workers, because they read the chronicle — is reading it,” said Saacks. “So if it’s lying there it’s read by everyone in the household, whereas if it’s in an inbox, it’s only read by you.”
The stories that the CJC covers are focused on the Jewish community, but Saacks emphasised that the human element of the stories is crucial. “It’s a showcase for a very vibrant and active community that lives here. From the education and museums and welfare, there’s so many arms to the community and it really looks at the individuals to show the diversity,” said Saacks.
The politics of the paper are not hyper-conservative, according to Blake Shapiro, a member of the Jewish community in Cape Town, and an English honours student at the University of Cape Town. “As far as Jewish political paradigms go, I’d say it’s decently progressive,” said Shapiro.
According to Belle Marx-Miller, a school teacher who grew up reading the CJC in Seapoint, the publication remains relevant to its community: “[There’s] enough support from the community for it to continue, at least in a form that remains accessible to people.”
The front page of the June edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle, which features stories about Covid-19 vaccines and a ‘peace wall’ on the Israel-Gaza border. PHOTO: Supplied/Cape Jewish Chronicle