Bring together a French explorer, a Scottish engineer, a New Zealand-born TV presenter, a murderer, a medical writer, an international tennis star, a professor, a judge, an Australian-born farmer, an Afrikaans playwright, a Jewish diamond prospector, a frantic mother, two famous African writers, a variety of white and black novelists, editors and journalists, not forgetting a San/Bushman mother - and something amusing should result. These men and women of different races, different centuries, different cultures (ranging from American-Irish to Zulu), have one distinction in common - each has been identified as among the most entertaining writers of English-language humour in South Africa in the last 200 years.

The book is part follow-on of Tyson’s easy to read and fascinating autobiography The Other Side – Behind the News 1 where the reader is taken on a vicarious, and often humorous, journey through the landmark South African and world events he witnessed on his watch. But it is much more than that, too. Unpacking the history of the printed press – and its imminent demise, hence the book’s title – and the challenges that have and always will face the Fourth Estate, this book is a must-read for any journalist or student of journalism. Tyson also expounds on his vision of the future of credible online journalism and stresses the importance of online news portals and content providers subscribing to the tried-and-tested credos and ethics of leading printed newspaper brands such as The New York Times.

He wrote on politics and racism before the word ‘apartheid’ ever made headlines. He has questioned southern African leaders from Drs. Malan and Verwoerd to Vorster, PW Botha, FW de Klerk to the first president of Zambia, Kenneth Kuanda, and President Mugabe; including global leaders such as President Mandela, General Smuts, President Gerald Ford and Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Why The Other Side? In part one of Tyson’s remarkable autobiography he encourages views that are different to the fixed positions which most people hold on both sides of the political divide. He writes lightly about his most dangerous moments, and sympathetically about those who struggle to help others. He invites you to look at the situation from ‘the other side’ – wherever confrontation arises.