Ferial Haffajee: Why rebuilding trust in South Africa’s media starts locally

bongiwe53
6 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

Veteran journalist and editor Ferial Haffajee has argued that rebuilding trust in South Africa’s media depends on a renewed focus on local reporting, accountability journalism and audience-centred innovation, warning that service delivery failures and political fragmentation demand more sophisticated coverage.

Speaking at the fraymedia foundation Rise & Shine Women in Media Breakfast at the end of January, Haffajee reflected on more than three decades in journalism, from anti-apartheid activism to leading major newsrooms, and her current work documenting the everyday failures of local government.

“Journalism has only ever been about changing society for me,” Haffajee said. “It’s why I’ve stayed a journalist for more than 30 years – I really do believe in its ability to reshape societies,” she said.

Haffajee traced her career from early editorships to leading her school newspaper, to the Mail & Guardian and City Press, describing how digital platforms fundamentally altered the economics and reach of journalism.

Recounting how Nic Dawes had introduced her to Twitter, she described putting City Press headings on the platform: “I soon had more followers on Twitter than City Press had readers,” she said. “That’s when I realised newspapers were kaput – the model of putting a newspaper on a truck and taking it to people was going to die.”

She said this realisation prompted her eventual decision to leave print leadership roles and eventually find a new home at the Daily Maverick, which she described as “audience-centric” and “innovating on the curve” all the time.

The Daily Maverick’s sustainability model, she said, combines membership, philanthropy and advertising. “About 32,000 people pay around R200 a month, which covers roughly a third of our overheads,” she explained. “The rest comes from philanthropy and advertising. So this (is a) three part model of making sustainable media. I really feel like it's the way to go because I see it working all the time. It shifts … sometimes advertising is a bigger part than membership. Sometimes membership is a bigger part than revenue from philanthropists. But this mixed model, if you are starting up your own businesses, it really is a successful model. “

Online harassment and the cost of speaking out

Haffajee also spoke candidly about the personal toll of editorial leadership, including sustained political pressure and online harassment.

“This is where it gets really ugly,” she said, referring to coordinated digital attacks on women journalists. “People worked out that if you want to get women out of the industry… social media is the tool to use.”

Turning to local accountability journalism

In recent years, Haffajee has shifted her reporting focus to Johannesburg’s infrastructure failures – from broken traffic lights and potholes to electricity and water outages.

Using mapping tools and audience submissions, her reporting visualises the rollback of democratic gains in basic services.

“One of the biggest fruits of democracy was the extension of electrification and water to people. With state capture, those gains are being rolled back,” she said.

“I was a journalist who mostly covered state capture .. I thought no one would read stories about potholes and traffic lights,” she said. “But they do – because it’s local. And local is the way to rebuild the trust which we see has been eviscerated in media,” she said.

Coalitions, complexity and the next elections

Looking ahead, Haffajee warned that journalists must adapt to a permanent era of coalition politics.

“We now firmly live in a coalition country,” she said, focusing on local government elections. “We have to learn to cover coalitions with complexity and sophistication.”

She cautioned against assumptions that coalitions automatically improve governance, noting that in some metros service delivery had deteriorated as “there are more places for rent extraction to happen”.

Reflecting on the current political landscape, Haffajee urged journalists to also capture the stories of the people affected by the politics of the day.

Rethinking South Africa’s dominant narratives

Haffajee ended with a call to rebalance how South Africans talk about their country, arguing that democratic resilience, civil society and social protection are often undervalued.

“We’ve had about five presidents in 30 years… Every single one of our elections has been deemed free and fair by both international and continental observers,” she said. “That’s something we should be more proud of – proud of the IEC, proud of democratic longevity, proud of our media, proud of our civil society.”

She also challenged negative framings of social grants. “Of course we want more people working. But the fact that we can pay 19 million people - 26 million if you take into account public works and other new grants - the fact that we can extend that hand of social solidarity to so many South Africans who need is not a bad thing,” she said, comparing South Africa’s system to Brazil’s celebrated Bolsa Família programme.

Citing stories of civil society and community support, Haffajee concluded: “I think sometimes we too much take our definition (of who we are as South Africans) from failing politicians, when in fact our country offers a different metric by which to think about and understand ourselves, and therefore to reshape narratives about continent and about country.”

The fraymedia Foundation Rise & Shine Breakfasts are a regular convening that bring together women media leaders, editors, journalists and emerging founders with key voices from across public life, civil society and the economy. To receive the full presentation by Ferial Haffajee please send direct email here.