Dennis Pather … a story worth telling
IT WAS, as I recall, one of those lackadaisical Sunday afternoons in Durban in mid-2017.
Nothing scintillating or even remotely titillating in the weekend papers. Siesta beckoned and I was ready to answer the call of St Raphael, the patron saint of sweet dreams, when a sudden shriek from my wife, Kay, pierced the silence.
“Dennis, do you realise what day it is? I remember you once telling me you started work as a journalist way back on July 2, 1967. That’s exactly 50 years ago – to the very day!”
That was enough to startle me out of my slumber.
Fifty years! Now that’s a story worth telling – the story of a young black journalist who, after learning the ropes on several small black community newspapers, knocked on the imposing doors of the mighty Argus company at Durban’s 85 Field Street in search of new opportunities.
But Aunty Argus – as the company was endearingly referred to by her faithful – was far from welcoming.
She didn’t approve of the company the young journalist kept, especially those left-wing, anti-apartheid communists and black consciousness trouble-makers intent on changing the cosy status quo.
But the young man was persistent, refusing to take “No” for an answer. He kept on knocking. And when Aunty Argus’s heart eventually melted a year or so later, and she gingerly opened those seemingly impenetrable doors, he jumped in with both feet.
And over the next 40-odd years, he thrived in an eventful and professionally rewarding career; was awarded a coveted Nieman Fellowship to study at Harvard University in the US; travelled widely and rose through the ranks to eventually become editor of four of the company’s major newspaper titles – the Daily News,
for some years in conjunction with the old Saturday Paper, The Mercury, and POST before retiring as deputy editor of the Sunday Tribune.
His experiences – from running menial errands in the newsroom as a copy boy; skilling himself as a journalist the hard way because formal training was only open to whites; fighting against racial prejudice both within and outside the newspaper industry; and his eventual success as an award-winning editor and columnist – form the narrative of his first book, which is expected to be published soon.
The journey begins
My journey in journalism began when I was hired as a young cub reporter on the old Golden City Post – the predecessor to the existing product – way back in 1967. It was my first job after my expulsion, with four other student activists, from the apartheid-inspired University College for Indians on Salisbury Island in Durban.
The editor, GR Naidu, led a lively team of journalists, including some household names in local tabloid journalism at the time, including IA Khan, Bobby Harrypersadh, George Mahabeer, Farook Khan and Rajendra Chetty, to name a few, as well as photographers Ranjith Kally, MS Roy and Dawood Bux.
To thrive on a racy tabloid in those days, it counted in your favour to know what was ticking in the underworld; what was the big gossip in social circles; what mischief people in high society were getting up to; who was swindling whom and what scandals were in the offing in local court houses.
As it turned out, I enjoyed my oneyear stint at the Golden City Post. It was a good entry point to my career, but I yearned for something more challenging and fulfilling in the profession. The opportunity came a year later when a local family-owned newspaper,
The Leader, offered me a position as a reporter.
Under the editorship of Sunil “Sunny” Bramdaw, I began for the first time to really feel, smell and enjoy the processes behind putting a newspaper together.
The premises were rather spartan, but who cared?
As the only full-time reporter on the staff, you were called upon to cover all beats – politics, crime, entertainment, sport and writing the kiddies column occasionally.
What made the job exciting was that
The Leader buzzed with non-stop activity and excitement all day. Politicians of all shades of opinion, including Steve Biko, Barney Pityana, Fatima and Ismail Meer and Dr K Goonam would walk in to offer their views on current issues of the week.
One big drawback of The Leader was that, as a family business, money was always tight so after five eventful and productive years, the offer of more money from another local weekly, The Graphic, was too tempting to turn down. It was an exciting three years editing and reporting for The Graphic, but the longer I stayed, the more restless I became to advance into mainstream journalism.
Tired of being a big fish in a small pond, I wanted to swim in open company to prove myself.
But the breakthrough into mainstream was not all plain sailing, as I soon was to discover.
New challenges
After being initially rejected by the Argus Company, I eventually managed to secure a position on the Daily News, but it took some time adjusting to this
new environment.
So accustomed to working in cramped, claustrophobic conditions, with poor lighting and inadequate ventilation, the Daily News newsroom seemed strange, almost intimidating at first – like relocating from a dimly lit single-roomed outhouse to an expansive convention centre.
Also unnerving was being surrounded by a sea of white faces in a common workplace. Enforced racial separation under apartheid over so many decades filled me with doubt and apprehension.
Even more distressing was that the company, while claiming to be opposed to racial discrimination, continued to practise petty apartheid on its premises at 85 Field Street – separate canteens and separate toilets for blacks and whites.
On the editorial front, colleague Subry Govender and I began seeking answers from the newspaper’s white decision-makers about its policies and content judgements.
Why is our newspaper concentrating its coverage only on white issues and political rivalries and largely avoiding stories on what’s happening in other communities? Why is there little or no coverage of what’s happening in the liberation movements and black community organisations?
If the Daily News is genuinely opposed to apartheid as it claims, what is it doing to play an active role in exposing apartheid’s abuses? Do people of colour not deserve to appear on our social or lifestyle pages?
Why are our sports pages granted acres of space to cover white soccer games at Kingsmead while coverage of non-racial matches at Curries Fountain was invariably relegated to two paragraphs in 6-point type on page 29 of the newspaper?
What worked in our favour to some extent was that the times, they were a'changing.
While the newspaper retained its traditional character, representing the mood, norms and interests of the white community it had served for over 100 years, it was impossible for it to ignore evidence of the growing readership among people of colour in the city.
The conditions were ripe for black journalists to be pro-active in redressing this unfair and profoundly destructive imbalance in coverage. It was time for us to start telling readers the real South African story. We welcomed the challenge, but it came at a cost.
The apartheid system and its myriad media and security laws and regulations proscribed and restricted how journalists could cover the news.
Worse was to come when journalists were harassed and intimidated, arrested and detained and sometimes prosecuted because, to the apartheid Security Police, the truth looked ugly in print.
I personally lost count of the number of times my home was raided at night and my documents confiscated; when my car was forced off the road after an assignment and my notes ripped to pieces; and the hours of interrogation by police who did not like the smell of what I wrote in my newspaper.
Will I ever forget the day in 1985, when the government introduced its dreaded emergency regulations when South Africa was virtually placed under martial law and the media, including my newspaper, shackled under rigid censorship?
The black perspective
Writing from a black perspective during the apartheid era came with predictable risks – but, in some ways, it also helped open doors.
Because South Africa featured so strongly as an issue internationally, the hunger for news about our country and its future trajectory grew by the day.
So invitations to black journalists to attend conferences, study tours and exchange programmes overseas began to
grow. The first for me was an invitation in 1980 to join a group of African and Asian journalists for four months at the International Institute for Journalism in the former West Berlin.
Then followed a string of invitations to exchange programmes and study tours in the US, a short working stint at the Argus company’s bureau in London, and several foreign-governmentsponsored trips to Germany, Portugal, India, Canada, Holland, China, Taiwan, Thailand as well as Mauritius, Reunion and Zambia.
The crowning experience was, of course, my selection as South Africa’s Nieman Fellow in 1987, joining 19 international mid-career journalists from all corners of the globe for a year’s sabbatical at Harvard. What made it all the more exciting was that my wife Kay and two teenage children, Brendan and Nisha, were allowed to accompany me. It was, without a doubt, the best year of our lives.
In the chair
What’s it like being in the editor’s chair? Well, for a start, there isn’t a practical manual you can rely on. Editing is the sort of job you learn as you go along, based on hard experience and lots of time. Just like being a parent, I suppose.
From day one, you are bombarded by a flood of all-too-human doubts and misgivings.
I’m in the hot seat. The plane’s in flight, and I’m the pilot. I’m not even sure I know how to land this thing. Am I ready for this?
Yes, you do get the opportunity to rub shoulders with influential and creative people and sometimes with notorious celebrities as well. But you also face the daily chore of dealing with loonies and cranks, disgruntled readers, outraged advertisers and abuse from high-ranking managers. And let’s never forget all those irate politicians who complain bitterly when the truth looks ugly in print.
As leader of a team that participates in momentous and historic events, the editor’s role and responsibilities are undoubtedly enormous – and can be hugely rewarding in the personal sense.
You and your staff share an intimate sense of involvement in major issues of the day, not just in your writing but also in your everyday judgments over a wide range of issues.
Columns
One of my fervent passions, especially in the later years of my career, was writing newspaper columns which accorded me the freedom to break away from the formal protocols and rules of journalism and express my personal opinions on matters of the day.
It all started in the early 1990s, when I began writing a column for the Daily News called “Black Press”, in which I highlighted and commented on critical issues raised in newspapers read mainly in the black communities.
Later, after being appointed editor of the publication, I began writing a column called “Natal Fever”, which ran for several years.
This was followed by a weekly column in the Sunday Tribune Herald called “Stopping By” and “Talk of the Bazaar” in POST – a revival of a highly popular and controversial column that appeared in The Leader many decades earlier.
But my favourite, by a long shot, was my weekly column in the Sunday Tribune, “Tongue and Cheek”, which ran uninterruptedly for 12 years, way beyond my official retirement in 2010.
Retired newspaper editor and columnist, Dennis Pather’s debut book, “Copy Boy”, tells the story of a young black journalist who, despite being rejected by white mainstream media, refused to take no for an answer and kept on knocking at the seemingly impenetrable doors of racism and white prejudice. In a career spanning over 50 years, he rose through the ranks to become editor of four different titles, and was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. The book recounts his journey through the apartheid era and how South Africa has evolved over the years into a land of huge potential, yet alive with contradictions and uncomfortable truths.
Over the next few weeks, journalists and photographers will share their stories and experiences.