Last week you couldn’t move in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg without bumping into a camera crew and I suspect it was the same story in Cape Town. They’re obviously here to cover the football but in those yawning gaps between matches they have to earn their salaries and go off and look for other stories. The problem is that many of the TV networks arrived with pre-conceived ideas of what South Africa should be and they have been trying to fit the stories to those ideas. It’s a universal media failing I’m afraid. Prof Jonathan Jansen accused eTV’s jaundiced Deborah Patta of doing the very same in his column in The Times last week.

Poor Emma Hurd has the misfortune to be Sky TV’s Africa correspondent and she has come in from some sharp criticism this past week for her negativity. People even wrote letters to Business Day complaining about Sky’s coverage and someone has created a spoof Twitter page in the name of EmmaTurd which is precisely the sort of fame nobody needs. Ask BP, who is the victim of a similar spoof Twitter page. I suspect that it’s not all Emma’s fault though. Some honcho sits back in the offices in London and issues the orders to go and find starving black kids with flies around their eyes sitting in the dust while the world enjoys the 2010 party. Emma then has to patiently explain that the honcho is probably thinking of Sudan or Ethiopia and that the best she can do is a dirty corner of a township where she will emphasise the lack of running water and electricity. And there’s nothing wrong with that because that’s what journalists are supposed to do. If there are facts to be reported then all well and good but if it’s simply a case of coming to South Africa with a brief to put the boot in then don’t be surprised if we kick back.

Fortunately organizations like Sky are savvy enough to sniff the air and judge the mood of the people and that happened last week. After taking quite a bit of flak from local viewers, Emma Hurd suddenly became pretty enthusiastic about our humble efforts to stage a world class event and she and her colleagues were highly complimentary. As were the BBC, CNN and many other networks that had definitely begun their coverage with a sneering “they’ve bitten off more than they can chew” attitude. Now admittedly there have been incidents of hotel room robberies from visiting teams and this does cast a small pall over the whole event. But maybe it’s all part of our strategy to win this competition. After all, how committed are you going to be on the field as a player if you are constantly thinking about someone breaking into your hotel room and swiping your bubble wrapped wooden giraffe and your spending money?

On the whole though, things have gone remarkably well and South Africa has yet again disappointed its critics by putting on a fabulously choreographed opening ceremony which concentrated more on people than on pyrotechnics. That was followed by a game where the number 83 ranked team in the world played in a way that brought tears to the eyes of even non football fans. It was sports entertainment at its best and the visiting football fans are loving it.

If one of the aims of this event was to attract visitors to South Africa and to show the country in a good light then we are doing a great job thus far. It’s still early days but there’s no reason to suppose that the infrastructure can’t handle the extra load. After an initial shaky start, the TV networks now have no option but to report the visiting fan’s delight at their reception in South Africa. You can’t set up a TV camera in a location full of garishly dressed, smiling people all blowing vuvuzelas and pretend to the viewers that people are having a terrible time. That story has been beamed around the world many times and the world is getting the message loud and clear….South Africa knows how to throw a party. And what happened to all that racial tension? Well, it sure as hell hasn’t disappeared but what the support for the World Cup has made abundantly clear is that the majority of South Africans of all colours are happy to be able to work, eat, sleep, drink and watch sport together.

Apart from a semi final with Bafana Bafana what else should we wish for from this world cup? A higher world profile as a tourist destination is now a given and an enhanced reputation as a sophisticated economy would be nice. Many first time visitors I have spoken to have expressed surprise at how many gleaming new buildings we have. But the best legacy of the World Cup 2010 would be our own realization that we live in a society where people of all colours are prepared to work together to improve the lives of all in this country. So when the likes of Jimmy Manyi, Julius Malema et al spew their venom about how racist South Africa is (losers always need someone to blame) we can show them the red card and send them off.