You know your online reputation is in a mess when a blog entry I've written about you appears on the highest ranked Google search results for your name. You may be thankful that this applies to only one person on the face of the planet - eTV's infamous Debora Patta.

I discovered this tonight as I recieved yet another comment from an adoring Debora fan who somehow thinks this site, and a posting I wrote about her (read it here), is really her personal site and thus a dumping ground for all the bad pubilicity she so easily attracts.

Now look, of late I am happy to indulge in my mean side, and I will publish the comments willingly. Although I suspect that it may also stem from some bitterness at being snubbed by the woman when I offered to help make her new 24-hour news channel a narrative-based news star!

A few months back I wrote a fairly scathing post on Debora Patta and the shoddy job she did in a 3rd Degree interview with a megalomaniac on eTv. Having returned from a PR Net event she hosted this evening I now write with a slightly different perspective on her. Besides the insight she provided on her show, it seems her in-person persona (excuse the possible redundancy) is a whole lot easier to digest than her on-screen presence.

Am I getting soft? Nah ... I still maintain that she did a shoddy job. Hearing her speak outside of the blood-thirsty investigative journalism mode is slightly refreshing and has done some work in shifting my perspective on her.

Before you write this post off as a pseudo-apology and quit reading, know that I'm going somewhere with this and that there is some backbone and relevance around narrative to be explored below.  read more »

I'm embarrassed.

I've just finished watching an iconic South African journalist lose some serious credibility ... publicly ... in my eyes at least. The typically acidic Debora Patta has just anchored an edition of ETVs investigative programme 3rd Degree that took a hard look at South Africa's very own Enron-type scandal ... and she did a piss-poor job.  read more »