Link of the Week: The Daily Dispatch

(An SA Blog Beta post from Your Correspondent)

SA Blog’s Link of the Week will be especially useful for travellers visiting the Eastern Cape. Click over to the website of the Daily Dispatch, South Africa’s best daily online newspaper, for good coverage of East London, Nelson Mandela Metropole (NMMM – a.k.a. Port Elizabeth), Grahamstown, Umtata, and all the lovely E Cape beach villages like Jeffrey’s Bay and Port St. Johns – plus many tidbits from around the rest of the country.

The Dispatch prioritizes its news like any proud regional paper: local stories first! Today, for instance, the lead is an obituary of the Xhosa traditional leader Xolilizwe Sigcawu, who had the title of “King of the Gcaleka,” and lived near Willowvale, about 150 kms north-east of East London. Hamba Kahle, baba.

Some might dispute the Dispatch’s status as the number one online paper: what about the Mail&Guardian or Independent Online sites? But unlike those news sources the Dispatch is 100% free (ah, free); and its site is tidier, and its reporting style more practical – both decided advantages from the web surfer’s perspective.

For a dependable, below-the-radar look into South Africa, bookmark the link of the week: www.dispatch.co.za.