Ferial Haffajee is better than Lois Lane

Ferial Haffajee is exactly the kind of person about whom, as a journalist, you do not want to write. I can feel her eyes scanning this copy even as I type it and the weight of her reputation is surely pressing on my hands.

All this pressure, despite having had the pleasure of meeting her in person and finding the most accommodating, soft-spoken ‘boss’ I have ever met. There is an unexpected openness in her demeanour that contradicts the hard-nosed investigative Lois Lane character which her wealth of accomplishments generates.

But do not mistake Haffajee’s easygoing nature for naiveté. Bring up the right topics – or any topics, really – and that razor-sharp intellect quickly comes to the fore.

It is immediately apparent that she is almost always the smartest person in the room and everyone knows it – except her. This is a trait that is generally incredibly irritating, but not so much with her. Haffajee makes you want to be smarter.

And that is probably her greatest talent.

Despite a crushing schedule, the new editor of the City Press newspaper was able to squeeze in a few minutes to talk to Leadership.

What led you to a career in journalism?

I always understood journalism to be one of those ‘change professions’ such as law and medicine – one of the professions that allowed you to fight against the system. I suppose that was my key motivation because I thought writing was a very powerful weapon to fight against apartheid, and I was better at it than I was at my legal studies.

It appealed to me from when I was at high school already, so when I applied and was offered a training position at the Weekly Mail, I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.

At age 22, you were one of the few reporters included on the panel to interview Nelson Mandela shortly after his release. Had you built up a very good reputation for yourself that early on to have been included?

No, not at all. I had just gone to work at the SABC, which by then was a very, very newly liberated space. In fact, when you were working there, you could feel the dead hand of the Broederbond all around you.

The SABC constructed that panel and, because I had been covering politics for several years by then – and they needed a black woman – I was fortunate to be chosen.

So you were a quota?

I feel no shame in acknowledging and taking pride in the fact that I benefited from affirmative action and, if you had left those Broederbonders to choose a panel, it would have been an all-white, all-male, possibly all-Afrikaans one.

Because there was a new leadership, because the ANC was coming – with many women in positions of leadership and authority – they wanted a woman on the panel, and I was fortunate to get that. I was quite well read on politics so, to me, possibly one of the stronger people at the SABC at that time.

I was very young at the time, and yes, it was an enormous honour.

Not to diminish your abilities, but you cannot discount the influence it had on your future career.

Not at all. It was a big box-office moment, but each of [the panellists] asked a question. We all really had bit parts in it and I think I asked only one question and that was it. There was not any ability to go back to it.

The way the debate was structured, it was not really a debate. It was an opportunity for them to present something that felt like a democratic forum, but you did not have an opportunity to interrogate them in any way, so our roles were quite tiny.

But there is still quite a degree of cachet in being able to say, “I interviewed Nelson Mandela”, even if it was only one question.

(Pauses) I have never ever used it. People have picked up that biographical detail and always used it, but I have never personally claimed that as a highlight.

When you became editor at the Mail & Guardian (M&G), you became quite well known. Talk radio and other media would often call on you to give commentary on current affairs. Did you ever find that your celebrity status came in the way of the work?

I never see myself in those ways. I think that when I became editor, it made news because I was a woman, basically. I was the first woman [editor], and [the M&G] is big brand media.

I was taken by extreme surprise by the announcement and how it was celebrated; as a real marker for women. I did not expect that at all. I tried to say, “That is lovely; it can be a change moment for the industry.” Because until then, you always saw the editor as being a male figure.

And usually a white one?

Yes, but by then it had started changing. You had Mondli Makhanya and Justice Malala and a number of other people, so already you would have seen the first wave of black editors and I think I became part of the first wave of female editors.

So it did not occur to you at the time that when you accepted the position, it was actually a big deal?

Not at all. I nearly fell off my seat that afternoon when my phone did not stop ringing. It was actually a very uncomfortable afternoon because I was sitting next to Drew Forrest, the deputy editor who had also applied for the job but did not get it, and he was my mentor.

So I found that was quite a tough moment.

During your tenure at the M&G, you took the controversial decision to republish the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. Was that the hardest decision of your career?

Yes, looking back on it and on the Thursday afternoon when I decided to do it, it was really simply, “My goodness, look what is happening around the world, look at these protests. What caused it...?” and they were not hard to find.

In fact, I think I saw [the cartoons] from a Muslim friend and colleague who had sent them to me.

You have broken a number of high-profile stories before, but this particular incident actually extended into your personal life as well, correct?

That was the first time it happened to me where it hit me so full square – in the community and in my personal life. This [situation] was very angry, and often irrationally angry.

Why do you think the Muslim community reacted so intensely?

I saw another side to a community that I had grown up in. That was completely something I could not understand because I had always grown up in multi-religious, very tolerant communities where we each understood and where different people understood the different morals and practices of each other. And it was characterised by high levels of integration, high levels of tolerance.

So the anger took me by surprise and I realised how you import global debates and how you import global fears and insecurities. So no matter how much you can say that the Muslim community does not experience xenophobia and is not marginalised and is not under siege here, so many other Muslim communities globally are.

And it does not matter: this community feels those pains, that is what I started to realise.

It is not something that I would want to go through again.

You have mentioned in the past that, in light of the recent Zapiro cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed, that if you were in Nick Dawes’ (current M&G editor) shoes, you would not have published the cartoons, but you would also have resigned. Do you not find that contradicts your previous position? Or is that decision informed by your experience?

Sure, perhaps. And perhaps I am scared and maybe I simply don’t want to put myself, nor people whom I love, through such an experience again. I possibly value freedom of expression more highly.

So if I did that, I would feel as if I had somehow violated a core value. I could never tell Zapiro, “Change the drawing, or I will not publish this.”

Are you saying there is an editorial carte blanche that is specific to cartoonists?

It is specific to cartoonists. Give cartoonists a special carte blanche, in the same way your internal ombudsperson has a special carte blanche.

What is your take on the recent discovery of Cape Argus’ reporter Ashley Smith having generated positive copy for former Western Cape Premiere Ebrahim Rasool? Putting aside the legality thereof, industry consensus is that many reporters get themselves into situations like this because of the low pay that is pervasive in the industry.

There is a bigger thing going on here. I think you have to be absolutely clear in your mind that you cannot be writing press releases on one side of the fence and then on the other side be a journalist.

Yes, journalists are not terribly well-paid people. You know that and I know that. So I have spent most of my 20 years as a journalist doing some freelancing on the side, but I have always tried to ensure it is not in the realm of public relations. It is journalism.

If you are freelancing for another enterprise, that is subject to the same rules and I think that is where Ashley got it wrong. You can’t say, “Okay, today I am going to be an editor of the Cape Argus and tonight I am a political adviser.”

Does this not put the onus on media owners to start offering better pay to the factory workers of the industry – its reporting staff?

That is part of a large, large look. We are busy talking about that in our company. We have started talking about people making declarations of interest, about rules being put in place that you may not own a company; what is justifiable freelance and what is not.

Or banning freelancing, but then part of that discussion surely must be on salary scales.

We require a completely holistic look at the industry practice.

I was a judge on the CNN African Journalist of the Year Awards and that has given me a real opportunity to have a bird’s-eye view of journalism on our continent, and payola across our continent is very, very dangerous, very common and very destructive.

Is the best thing then to create transparent, unambiguous policies?

Yes, we require clear charters and policies.

What was the rationale behind moving from the M&G to the City Press?

I have been a journalist for 20 years and throughout that time, I have made it a rule of thumb to move every three years. So when I was at the M&G for five years, I started getting itchy feet, began thinking “What next?”. I think we have to renew our skills continually and sharpen our swords.

I could have stayed at the M&G. It is my comfort spot and it is what I know best, but I like the mass base of City Press; I like learning new things and also being in the real world.

Is it very different?

Yes, it is completely new for me and just the learning curve I need. ▲

Zaid Kriel