Data journalism takes top prize in revamped awards

YOUNG JOURNALIST

This award provides an opportunity to fast-track a young journalist’s professional and personal development through an all-expenses paid overseas trip that includes a visit to the renowned Thomson Foundation, as well as the opportunity to work in a newsroom. This year’s winner is Robin-Lee Francke from Daily Voice.

LIFETIME ACHIEVER AWARD

When this year’s recipient, Ms Amina Frense heard that she was the Vodacom Lifetime Achiever for 2018, there was shock, silence and a “I think I need to sit down … is this for real” from her.

Our recipient has a long career of several decades in the mainstream media industry both locally and internationally. She is a former Managing Editor: News and Current Affairs at the SA Broadcasting Corporation. She has worked in many countries abroad as a producer and a foreign correspondent, including for German Television ZF, WDR, and many others – telling the story of all the victims of apartheid and the struggle against the apartheid regime.

Frense served in several senior positions at the SABC following 1994, holding many senior editorial positions in its news division after covering SA’s first democratic elections. She was also Director of Special News Services at the SABC and served as Editor Training and Development and Political Editor. When she retired from the SABC three years ago she was Managing Editor of TV news and Current Affairs.

This die-hard journalist worked tirelessly over many years behind the scenes in all areas of journalism: reporting, production, and leadership.

She was born in Cape Town and her efforts as a struggle journalist pre-1994 for international television helped expose the heinous narrative of South Africa’s apartheid state abroad.

She was the first journalist who contacted former President Nelson Mandela when he was still imprisoned on Robben Island. Having heard about his incarceration as a young girl she often wondered how all the families of those on the island were coping.

When she began her work as a journalist it was with this in mind that she began telling the stories of those families whose loved ones were in prison. After visiting his home in Soweto, she flew to the Transkei with her then German Television news crew. She wrote to Madiba and sent him pictures of his Qunu home and the gravesite of his first wife. The letter was sent via his then wife Winnie Madikizela Mandela. She attached a few feathers to the letter – feathers from his home village and the chickens on the farm in the Transkei.

When Madiba was released he asked that she accompany him to his first visit to his home village – a promise he had made to her after receiving her letter. She was his guest of honour and the only woman among the group of senior chiefs and other guests.

She had the honour of having Madiba feed her with his “own fork”. “Such was his humility and gratitude. He said my letter in prison lifted his spirits and when he was released he would take me back home. So, two days after his release he met me and a few days later we visited his family home” – she was quoted in many sources the day Madiba died.

Frense is an author and has written two books under the pseudonym Acropolr Belfond, one named Mandela: Le portrait autorisé and the other Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation. She was the Associate Producer of Oscar-nominated Mandela Son of Africa film in 1997 and also the co-author of the book Mandela Authorised Interviews.

She is a founding and Council member of the South African National Editors Forum – and was elected the first Gauteng Regional Convener. She is a Press Councillor on the SA Press Council, a regulatory body for print and online media, and she served on the regional executive of the Media Institute of Southern Africa Executive Council

In her retirement, she spends time travelling abroad with her husband Ronnie Kassrils. She also dedicates her time to the IAJ, SA Press Council, and serves as a board member of the South African Centre for Mission and Exploited Children (SACMEC). She is respected among her peers and has over the years has contributed significantly in key platforms on news, media freedom and journalism.

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