Online series wins SA’s Journalist of the Year award

The Vodacom Journalist of the Year for 2019

The Chinese have a curse: “May you live in interesting times.” South Africans have always lived in interesting times and we have had a surfeit of huge stories. The struggle against apartheid was one of the biggest stories in the world at the time. The rampant corruption in our country in recent years was another. But a big story in South Africa has been all but ignored by the media and the world. This is the virtual genocide in the part of South Africa known as the Cape Flats where dozens of people are murdered on a weekly basis. It was only when the army moved in an attempt to quell the violence, that many people took notice. One writer went out of her way to tell the story of what are sometimes called ordinary people on the Cape Flats. What she found were stories of compelling compassion and people needing extraordinary courage in order to live decent lives. She reflected sensitively on their daily struggles and gave a voice to many people who would not ordinarily have a voice – which is what good journalism is supposed to be about. We hope that her work will encourage others to start focusing on what is one of the big and overlooked stories of our time.

For her body of work, a gang war series entitled When you live in Hanover Park, you know death, our Vodacom Journalist of the Year is Tammy Petersen of News24.

Each regional category winner receives R5,000, while national category winners take home an additional R10,000. The overall Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award winner lands the grand prize of R100,000. In the event of joint winners, the prize money will be shared. This year’s winner of the young journalist award, one of the competition’s most prestigious accolades, gets an all-expenses paid overseas trip to work in an international newsroom, including a visit to the renowned Thomson Foundation.

Citation for lifetime achiever

The struggle against apartheid was fought on many fronts. There was huge political pressure on the government of the day. There were sanctions, on the sporting, cultural and business fronts. The government often responded with serious acts of repression, invoking the might of their army and police in trying to quell resistance to an inhuman system. Many of the actions of the police and the army might have gone unnoticed in the world if it was not for a dedicated group of photographers throughout the country who tried to record apartheid atrocities, often at huge risk to themselves.

Our Lifetime Achiever was one of those brave men who used their cameras to tell the story of apartheid to the world. Without their contribution, we might never have overcome apartheid and become a democracy.

Our Lifetime Achiever, who passed away in September, is Willie de Klerk, a legendary photographer for the Cape Argus. He was the first black photographer to be employed full time by the paper. He was one of the few photographers to capture the Trojan Horse shootings in 1985, when police hid in crates on the back of a truck and fired on protesters.

Willie was one of the best at the time but was never properly recognised. He was runner up in the national photographic competition three times in succession, losing out mainly because his skin was not white.

The judges felt we wanted to honour his contribution to the media industry and to the transformation of our society, even though we realise that it might have come a few months too late.

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