Former president Thabo Mbeki has been declared Newsmaker of the Year by media research company Monitoring SA.

Former president Thabo Mbeki has been declared Newsmaker of the Year by media research company Monitoring SA.

Eskom took Newsmaker Organisation of the Year in the corporate section while the concept "fraud and corruption" was declared Newsmaker Issue of the Year.

The result is based on a study of 1,5million media items from 1800 news sources between January and November.

MSA chief executive Shaka Sisulu said: "The Presidency is generally always in the news, but the recall of president Mbeki was unprecedented.

"The ensuing media blitz from this action was also unprecedented."

Coverage of Eskom went beyond simple reportage to capture policy issues and economic implications and fraud and corruption's dubious honour showed that more had to be done on this issue, Sisulu said in a statement.

Coverage of Mbeki beat Jacob Zuma, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and US President-elect Barack Obama, while fraud and corruption as an issue beat poverty, xenophobia and the electricity crisis. - Sapa