Aziz was born to be an editor
THE new Cape Argus editor has an incredible story. His career as a journalist started on the trains of Cape Town. He would relay the news of the day to fellow commuters based on the stories he would collect from reporters at Parliament as a messenger for the Cape Times.
On his first day working for the publisher of the Cape Argus some 37 years ago, Aziz Hartley had to mop the floors of the newspaper company where he has been banging down doors ever since.
Aziz, 58, has a wicked sense of humour that comes in very handy – especially on deadline when the chips are stacked heavily against you. He also has a skillset I treasured when I had the privilege of working with him.
Aziz can do most things – if not all – at a newspaper, and more. I’ve witnessed how he chisels (his word, not mine) front page stories minutes before deadline with the thinnest leads, like a pro.
That sense of humour kicks in when I ask him if he’ll be riding the 40th edition of the Cape Town Cycle Tour, of which the Cape Argus is a co-sponsor, and which has become somewhat of a tradition for the paper’s editors.
His response? “I’m extremely worried, not only about doing the Cycle Tour but all those fans having to see this ou ballie on a bicycle.
“Last time I rode a bicycle was probably when my youngest daughter got a bike – that was about 20 years ago. I actually have a beautiful body – you’ll be surprised and that’s why I don’t go to gym.”
But to appreciate Aziz’s journey fully I have to start at the beginning. Last month he completed 37 years of service at Independent Media, the publishers of the Cape Argus.
Aziz was 21 when he started in the same year he was married. He had a casual job at the CNA warehouse where he was paid “absolute peanuts”.
He would be a father soon, so on a public holiday, on the advice of the Cape Times building (which is now Mandela Rhodes) lift operator, and his uncle, he went to see an Irishman by the name of Gerry Leitch.
“Leitch took one look at me and said, ‘Can you work?’ And I said, ‘Of course’. I started right there and then. I never went back to CNA. For the first task I was given a bucket, somebody else’s overalls and a mop and I was told to go up to the third floor, where our accounts department was. The same floor had the general manager, the late Wally Judge.
“I had to mop the vinyl and wooden floor passage. That was my first job. I struggled with that mop because I never really mopped. In my mother’s house I washed dishes, I made the beds and polished the furniture, but I never did the floors.
“It was a bit of a mission for me, but that was the first day and by 5 o’clock, Leitch came to me and said I should go to the paymaster’s office. I was put on the payroll. I’ve never looked back since.”
Aziz was never going to be content with mopping floors. Soon he was one of the Cape Times’ messengers, running errands and collecting the agendas at the council for the municipal reporter, or fetching the court roll for the court reporter.
“I graduated to being the parliamentary messenger, where you physically had to bring copy from the political writers to the office to be inputted in the system.
“I would stop at the cathedral, sit there and have a cigarette and read what they’d written. The same was the case when I was a cleaner: I would read and have an understanding of what would be in the paper the next day. Those stories were shared with other train passengers. I would start the conversation with something like, ‘Guess what is going to be on page one tomorrow?’ ”
It’s where his love for journalism started. Aziz dreamt of being a reporter, but his ambitions were stifled by a string of Cape Times news editors – before the late Colin Howell gave him his big break. Aziz would rise to the occasion. “(Colin) kept me at bay for quite a long time until he said, ‘Aziz, I have work to do’. When Colin speaks like that you must know to back off because very soon he was going to lose it.
“Ironically, it was Colin who gave me the break and I’m forever thankful for that break. It was Women’s Day on August 9 and Colin Howell had a huge problem because he was operating on a skeleton staff system.
“All of them were out and I took a call about a fire at a shoe factory in Salt River. Colin was in a bit of a panic and he said to me, ‘Okay, you go. Go out and bring me back a story’.
“Alan Taylor, the photographer, was like, ‘Why is this a story? What the f…’
“We went and I saw this woman firefighter who was taking the lead in fighting this fire. I watched how she handled it, directing her colleagues. I came back and wrote my story about her – this woman firefighter working on Women’s Day.
“Colin Howell had a look at the story and he fixed a few things and said, ‘Yoh!’
“He put me on probation for a month, one month became three months and he said I had better find someone to work in my place. Three months became six months and then it became a year. After about 15 months he said he would make a plan for me. I never looked back.”
Aziz, who is married and has four children and nine grandchildren, was born at the then Peninsula Maternity Hospital in District Six. His father was from Bo-Kaap and his mom from District Six.
“This young man had to walk from Bo-Kaap to District Six to start off what eventually would become me. The couple moved into Bo-Kaap where we stayed with four other families in one house in Helliger Lane, just opposite the mosque.
“I spent some of my childhood with my grandparents in Bo-Kaap, and some of it in District Six with my late aunty Janap. She lived in Parkin Street. After the Group Areas Act we were moved to Bonteheuwel. That’s where I attended primary school and went to Bonteheuwel High.
“I left school a year before the ’76 Uprisings but was still very much involved with the goings-on at high school.”
It was this political upbringing that would see him at odds with his bosses later on. “My very first job was at a place I hated intensely. It was like throwing a cat into a lion’s den. It just didn’t fly for me but the family needed an income. It was at the Natal Building Society.
“They had a branch here in St George’s Mall and the other branch was in Parow, where I had to go and work. Parow in the ’70s wasn’t a nice place for a coloured bloke. But my family needed the money so I stuck it out. How I managed to last more than a year was a miracle. I left there on a very bad note and ended up having a physical fight with my boss, a Mr Erasmus. But my mother understood.
“Finding work after that wasn’t very easy. I ended up working with my uncle in Paarden Eiland. It was a German company that serviced small engines for fishing boats. I got a job as a cleaner and tea boy.
“Again, I was in trouble because the paymaster, a Mr Van Heerden, from Monte Vista, was a piece of work. On a Thursday afternoon he would fling your wage packet to you – standing on a balcony he would throw it down on to floor below. We had to go and pick it up. It was very humiliating, but those kinds of things, I didn’t allow them to break me..”
Aziz married in 1979 and lived with in-laws and later with his parents. Later the couple moved to Atlantis, then Manenberg before settling in Mitchells Plain where he still lives today.
“Now, being the editor of the Argus – and before that editor of the Sunday Argus and deputy editor of the Cape Times – people ask me why I’m still living in Mitchells Plain? Surely, by now you should be moving to the suburbs?
“I say no, firstly the rates in Mitchells Plain are quite low,” he laughs.
“Secondly, this is where my people are. I love the community. I love the shouting on a Friday night, I love the screams on a Sunday morning from the aunty behind our house at her son who came in at 4am. It’s part of the township. It’s that vibe and I’m part of it and I wouldn’t want to leave it. I’ve never felt unsafe where I live.”
Aziz has been a source of inspiration to me. Whenever I think about my own challenges I think about his incredible journey from cleaner to editor of Cape Town’s oldest newspaper. That journey ensured Aziz would touch the lives of so many young reporters, like me, who came through the Cape Times’ ranks.
A few weeks ago, a young Cape Times reporter, Siyavuya Mzantsi, won the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award 2016 regional print news category. It’s no coincidence Aziz played a significant role in shaping his career.
“When I look at where I come from, for me it’s about trying to prevent somebody else having to go through the same challenges. It’s about opening the doors for others because those were closed for me before I got to where I am.
“It’s also about youngsters who come from disadvantaged communities, to give them a chance, create opportunities for them. I’m ever the optimist and I very seldom get sceptical about people. I see the best in people, and even though there are some people who just cannot be fixed, I still see the best in them.
“All I want in return is for them to show they have grown and impart your skills to someone else, share it. There’s nothing worse than leaving a place and you haven’t shared what you have. I think that’s a sin.”
Aziz has big plans for the Cape Argus and under his watch the paper is in great hands.
His plan includes putting the reader at the centre of strengthening the Argus as a household brand, increasing its footprint and developing new talent.
“I also want to bring people from different backgrounds together on the pages of this paper. We come from a history where our people were torn apart and I think it’s part of our responsibility to bring them back, to fix some of the wrongs of the past.
“I believe in collective leadership and I also believe the Argus readers must own this paper and help co-create it. It is their paper.
“I’m going to invite some of our oldest subscribers to come and join me in this office. I want them to sit back, kick off their shoes and for them to put their feet on that coffee table and I will serve them and thank them for their loyalty and support. And I want them to give me ideas… This paper is part of us, part of the city, part of our people.”
I HAD TO MOP THE VINYL AND WOODEN FLOOR PASSAGE. THAT WAS MY FIRST JOB. I STRUGGLED WITH THAT MOP BECAUSE I NEVER REALLY MOPPED I BELIEVE IN COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP AND I ALSO BELIEVE THE ARGUS READERS MUST OWN THE PAPER AND HELP CO-CREATE IT. IT IS THEIR PAPER