In Conversation With Trevor: Justice Malala: Journalists are under siege

By The Standard | Dec. 19, 2021

I think that traditional media for me is still a powerful tool because I do like in the morning to sit down and to say the proprietor is Trevor, the editor is this person that he and his board of advisors have appointed and they have curated for me what is happening in Sudan, what is happening in Ethiopia, what is happening with the killing of black men in the United States, and I get a sense of the world and someone has set that.

Prominent South African journalist Justice Malala says journalists on the continent are under siege from undemocratic regimes.

Malala (JM), who is also a political commentator, author, newspaper columnist and television host as well as producer, told Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the platform In Conversation with Trevor that the journalism profession faced multi-faceted challenges.

Below is an extract from the wide ranging interview.

TN: Justice Malala welcome to In Conversation With Trevor.

JM: Thank you Trevor, it is lovely to be here with you.

It is so lovely, you have done so much for my country.

I do not know what to say, it is an honour and a pleasure and it is really great to be speaking to you finally.

TN: It is my country too, it is my second home Justice.

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So what pains you pains me because it will always be my second home.

Thank you so much Justice, I do not take for granted your being here, thank you for creating the time.

I have been chasing you around, you have been writing a book, you have been hiding from me but I have finally pinned you down.

I am delighted I have pinned you down at a time when South Africa has been through the local government elections.

I think the results are almost there so we get an opportunity to talk about that.

So Justice, you are a political commentator, you are an author, newspaper columnist, a television host, you are an executive director. Which of those roles do you enjoy the most?

JM: I think I am still a journalist at heart.

TN: Right.

JM: You know I started off as a print journalist.

I started at The Star newspaper, which is based here in Johannesburg.

I was a young kid. In fact, we will talk about this later I am sure.

My first book starts on my first day in a newsroom at The Star.

I think about the assassination of Chris Hani, on April 10 1993 was my first day in a newsroom and that is what happened, the biggest story in transitional South Africa.

So, of all those roles really the key one, the one that I still feel myself as is a journalist.

I sit and look around and try to make sense of the world.

The others have been adders to me talking to people, talking to you, learning something and then commenting.

I know my kids, and I am sure your kids and the young ones are saying “Look he is talking about a typewriter!”

TN: Hahahaha

JM: That is still the way I think.

I still think many of us have that image of Dambudzo Marechera sitting in a park and bashing away, that is my idea of writing.

So that is me, that is how I still think of myself.

TN: Fantastic. So now when you look back, 1993 when you started, when you look back Justice at the profession, clearly you are growing, you are getting into other spaces but you remain at heart a journalist.

Looking at our profession in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, on the continent, what is your assessment of where our profession is right now?

JM: Look I think a lot of journalists are under siege and it is under siege not just from undemocratic regimes, as that has been going on for decades, you have fought and stood up on these issues of press freedom, the ability to be who you are as a journalist for many decades.

I think the challenges we face are multi-faceted.

It is the challenges of new ways of communicating, the fact that you and I have dipped our toe into this medium, speak to people on television, online and many other ways on social media.

Part of my frustration with social media is that Trevor is tweeting, Justice is tweeting, everyone is tweeting and I get a lot of junk.

So it is part of the challenge for our profession. How are we doing?

I think we have faced a lot of challenges, I think many people are standing up in a beautiful and courageous and admirable way, but I think the economics of newspaper making, magazine making, the medium in which we work has changed so fundamentally and so drastically that some of us who come from print particularly have not really grappled with what it means when stories running on social media right now and we are thinking our deadline is at 6 PM.

It cannot be, and that disruption is something to think about.

Finally, I think that there are many players who try to and, in many cases, succeed in manipulating the media, who are trying to in insidious ways trying to use, whether it is platforms like Facebook to undermine people and say owners of newspapers are this and that and calling out their editors and journalists of newspapers, who are standing up and speaking on particular issues.

So, I think that is the next challenge that people are spying, people are doing all kinds of things around the journalists’ world and we have to be constantly careful and keeping an eye out for these things because they are happening and they are happening fast.

TN: Do you think African journalists have an obligation to tell the African story in a different kind of way?

I know you are an international correspondent yourself.

There is a sense that the correspondents who are on the continent do tell the story in a manner that suits their audience and not particularly the African audience.

Where do you see it as far as that conversation is concerned?

JM: I think all journalists firstly have a responsibility to truth.

If we say The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times, the BBC; all these outlets if we believe that they are not telling the story of South Africa, of Zimbabwe or Kenya, of all these countries in a manner that is truthful, that is not what the truth is, then we must hold them to account for that.

The first thing for me is I am so happy to see young people on social media, on other platforms beginning to say “Hello I am sorry that is not what Trevor is all about, he is not just this one thing. It is possible to be two things at the same time…”

I think that is the first thing, to hold everyone to account, and in this day and age much to my delight we can hold people to account whether they are in Moscow or in Washington DC, because we get what they are doing right now and see it and we can say stop now this is not the right thing.

I think that needs to continue. I also think we Africans have to be able to tell our own story.

The danger of us buying into “I am African so I have to be nice about (Ethiopian Prime Minister) Abiy Ahmed” simply because we are from the same continent, it will not work because the people of Ethiopia also want my truth and they need my truth more than an elite that can send its children to school in Australia and the United States or United Kingdom.

I think this is part of the mistakes we have made in the past where it is “Trevor cannot tell the truth about the elite in South Africa even if that elite is looting and trampling on the rights of the poor” and it cannot be, we cannot stand for that and it should not pass.

So it is absolutely crucial that as I tell my story, and my story is one of the young kids from the village etcetera, and that is fantastic and we tell that story, but be careful of power because power in Zimbabwe and power in South Africa work in exactly the same way in many instances, it protects itself.

It comes to me and comes to Trevor and says oh Trevor do not forget we are together because we have a black skin, but hello we are also together because we care about the poor.

We know where we come from, long centuries of oppression and so forth and so we need to stand up for those who cannot stand up and we need to stop perpetuating those things and there are many among us who do it.

So, I would say we have a huge responsibility to truth.

I did my ‘A’ Levels in Zimbabwe, so I can happily use words like the ‘povo’, which was a word we used when I was doing my ‘A’ Levels.

I think it is absolutely crucial that our loyalties are with the poor and not with those who have, our responsibilities are with the have-nots.

TN: Quickly, which school did you do your ‘A’ Levels? Just briefly, which school was that?

JM: I did my ‘A’ Levels at a private college in Bulawayo called Speciss College.

“In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor. Please get your free YouTube subscription to this channel. The conversations are sponsored by Nyaradzo Group.