On April 22, Johannesburg-based Kenyan photographer, Cedric Nzaka, took to Twitter to share his latest conquest. He had shot the cover for South Africa’s Cosmopolitan magazine, featuring Miss Universe, Zozibini Tuni. It was a big deal. Much as Nzaka has worked with various luxury brands over the years, ranging from Vogue to Nike and Netflix, this was his first-ever magazine cover. As he received adulation, Nzaka’s feat quickly morphed from being the guy who shot the latest Cosmopolitan cover to being one who did the magazine’s last cover.

On April 30, Associated Media Publishing, South Africa’s franchise holder for Cosmopolitan, announced that after a four-decade run, the company was permanently closing its doors on May 1, and ceasing publication of all its magazines, including House & Leisure, Good Housekeeping and Women On Wheels, due to the financial crunch brought about by COVID-19. And so, just like that, several editors, writers, photographers, designers, stylists and other production support staff became jobless.

Ordinarily, Nzaka and those like him who are contracted by high-end clients on a need-to-basis may have the privilege of having potential clients lurking in the shadows, but not with COVID-19 in the picture. With event cancelations and a lull in advertising, there is not much work for commercial photographers. For writers and editors, it means going freelance, a not-so-easy ballgame for those accustomed to structured work regimes and timely paychecks. It means sending pitches with no guarantee of being commissioned, an exercise which requires thick skin due to the deluge of rejections accompanying this new reality. Presently, things look bleaker with numerous international publications deciding to no longer engage freelancers.

It wasn’t only glossy magazines that took a hit. The Mail and Guardian (M&G), one of Africa’s better known newspapers, found itself in a tight spot too. On March 27, the editor-in-chief, Khadija Patel, the deputy editor, Beauregard Tromp, and the Africa editor, Simon Allison, led the newsroom in appealing to readers on Twitter to subscribe to the paper. They weren’t sure they would afford to pay salaries in the coming months. Moving with speed to innovate, they launched The Continent, a digital newspaper reporting on Africa that is distributed through email and WhatsApp, a move aimed at growing regional readership and opening up future revenue streams. Then, on May 9, Patel and Tromp pulled a surprise move by resigning as editor and deputy editor, prompting speculation that their departure may be the outcome of the current financial ripples.

As Ferial Haffajee, former editor-in-chief of the M&G and later City Press writes in the Daily Maverick about her conversations with Patel, it wasn’t the first time the paper was in need of support from its readership. Thirty-two years ago, the M&G made an almost similar call to the public.

“Near her office is a 1988 poster of the first Weekly Mail (the M&G’s original name) when then editors Anton Harber and Irwin Manoim ran a campaign called Save the Wail,” Haffajee writes of her visit to Patel’s M&G office. “Then Minister of Home Affairs Stoffel Botha threatened to ban the title and on its cover, the paper ran the clarion call ‘DON’T LET US GO QUIETLY’, they asked readers. ‘Carry on reading us. Carry on subscribing. Make a fuss.’”

Patel’s Twitter call for subscriptions delivered an impressive 30 percent increase in paying readers.

The news business isn’t doing so well in Kenya either. On April 2, Radio Africa Group chairman, Patrick Quarcoo, wrote to employees explaining that while job losses will remain an option of last resort, pay cuts were inevitable, considering that revenue streams were fast drying up. Effective April 1, Quarcoo announced, employees taking home a gross salary of over Sh100,000 will take a 30 percent cut, while those earning below this amount will have their salaries reduced by 20 percent. There was a promise that the move (termed interim) would be reviewed periodically.

And even though it had already effected pay reductions, the Nation Media Group clarified on July 1 that salary cuts will last until December 2020—this while breaking the news that starting July 3, a chunk of its workforce will be immediately relieved of its duties.

Earlier on, on March 12, the Standard Group’s Orlando Lyomu sent an internal memo on the impending laying off of 170 employees, a purge staggered over a few months. However, it was the reduction in earnings by between 20 percent and 50 percent at the Mediamax Network that caused a frenzy, leading to resignations and court action. There was temporary relief until the morning of June 22, when over 100 staffers woke up to text messages declaring their roles redundant.