The Guardian I joined in 1989 as a Cub Reporter
The media landscape was pretty small then. There was the ubiquitous state media apparatus, Radio Botswana, Botswana Press Agency ( BOPA), Daily News and Kutlwano and then of course the private newspapers- Botswana Gazette; Mmegi wa Dikgang and then Botswana Guardian. James Motlhabane ( MHSRP) joined the same day with me that August, but very soon that same year he would migrate to the new kid on the block – the Midweek Sun. The towering Batshani Ndaba was the editor of Botswana Guardian and his deputy, the Zimbabwean Tendayi Nyakunu took over at The Sun.
We found good company in the newsroom in the persons of Linchwe Kgaswe and Augustine Mathumo ( MTSRIP) and the lady court reporter, Botho Kgengwenyane and the allrounder, Josiel Nare.
Ben Phethabosigo the photographer was prolific, churning picture after picture and with the help of Anna Mmokela experimenting with all types of hue and shade in the dark room.
Tukagano Kolagano ( TK), Nigel Mapogo ( MHSRIP) and Shadrack Balang ( Shadduf) presided over the Graphics department ( the brainchild of TK whom the publisher, William Jones had poached from Government Printers - today’s Government Printing and Publishing Services- precisely for this purpose in 1986)!
But this TK, although underrated, was a giant in his own right! It may be shocking for many to learn that The Midweek Sun is also his brainchild. He, along with Disney Molomo ( MHSRIP), approached Jones with the suggestion of starting a midweek publication to offload the excess business ( then there were adverts galore) from The Guardian. Although sceptical at first, Jones ran with the idea and the rest, as they say, is history! The Sun evolved from a tabloid paper with its notorious Page 3 girl that almost always got the newspaper in trouble with the conservative society of the time, to the brash news read it has become under its current editor, Joe- Brown Tlhaselo. Both state and private media practitioners were conjoined by their common vocation to their fraternal association and its adjunct organs to which everyone served. I remember Bapasi Mphusu, Mpho Maine and later Kebareng Solomon serving in various positions of both BOJA and the Press Club – both of which predate the Media Institute of Southern Africa! Of course government’s hostility towards the Fourth Estate is the constant that has defined and continues to shape the conduct and work of journalists. That’s to say that the present- day Media Practitioners Association Act is a culmination of government’s efforts to regulate the private media, which began in the late 1980’ s when government hired a Zambian Consultant to come up with a Media Council! In my years of practice, I have come to realise that the best way to run around this hostility is by consistent and firm adherence to ethical conduct and a commitment to perfecting our skills as well as integrating the new tools of the trade as and when they evolve. Here we are, from the days of the typewriter, the typesetter, telegram and printing press using on a daily basis the new gadgets of mass communication as if they’ve always been there. The trick is the ability of companies to integrate these and the extent to which they are willing to go to train their employees!
Deadlines were exciting – food and drinks galore, we acquitted ourselves with much gusto, and thanks to the profession’s leading lights of the time – Rampholo ( Chumza) Molefhe who ran a column called ‘ Tanjie’ and Douglas Tsiako at Mmegi, there was never a dull day. Things turned awry for me when in 1993, now as News Editor of the Botswana Guardian under Joel Sebonego ( MHSRIP), then the editor, I left for further training at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, a school started by a one- time journalist and founding president of Ghana, the revered Pan Afrikanist, Kwame Nkrumah.
This trip caught everyone by surprise, but infuriated Jones, especially since Joel was away in London attending a course sponsored by the Thompson Foundation. When I left for Accra, Joel was immediately recalled from London and sadly this would be the excuse which Joel, acting in cahoots with Richard Chance, would employ to chuck me out ( in my prime) the next year. There were many reporters and editors of renown that went through the Guardian, some of them were cadres and underground operatives of the liberation movements of South Africa – Pan Africanist Congress; AZAPO; Black Consciousness Movement and the African National Congress.
There was Charles Mogale, John Mukela Frans Pale, Vader Mthinkhulu, Andrew Motsamai, Elias Ntloedibe, Benson Makele and then the Zambian, Samu Zulu as well as all the other editors that came before I joined such as Mxolishi Mxgashe.
For this reason, it has always been my contention that, in its own unique way, the Botswana Guardian contributed immensely to the liberation struggle of Southern Africa!
When South West Africa attained independence and became known as Namibia in 1990, Linchwe Kgaswe was there to record history. And I was also there to capture South Africa’s liberation in 1994 having earlier followed the talks on Conference on Democratic South Africa ( CODESA) and the attendant negotiations between the ANC and Inkatha Party brokered by the Kenyan Professor Washington Okumu ( MHSRIP) here at Gaborone Sun.
Let me pay homage to former colleagues that joined us at The Guardian later on such as the veteran Morula Morula, Dan Peke ( deputy editor) the late Masupu Rakabane, Joel Balise, Chris Machokoto, Isaya Banda ( MHSRIP), Doreen Kgakole, Prof Malema ( a court interpreter at the Village Magistrate Court) and not to forget my Investigations Editor, Dikarabo Ramadubu – the man of every season.
I remember him at Vikings Softball Club, also as an award winning sports reporter and later as an investigations reporter and lately as a Commissioner in the Presidential Commission that reviewed the Republican Constitution!
I will not say anything about all those that came after 1994 and left their mark, such as Outsa Mokone, Mesh Moeti, Mike Mothibi, Mpho Dibeela, Joel Konopo and the host of reporters, some alive and others dead, because then, I was freelancing for almost every newspaper in the country, that is until Mike Mothibi ( former editor) saved me from the streets. William Jones is dead, but long will his memory live in the legacy he left this country. Botswana Guardian is indeed an institution that has graduated many scribes!