Cobus van Staden is a South African journalist and academic. He started in 1998 as a TV reporter for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. In 2001 he went to graduate school in Japan, getting a Master’s degree and a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Nagoya. After his return to South Africa he worked as an investigative journalist for the award-winning news show Special Assignment. He is currently on the faculty of the Media Studies department at The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, tracking the expansion of Chinese and Japanese media interests in Africa.