2019: the Moment of Clarity
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AFRICA’S BEST READ December 20 2019 to January 2 2020 Vol 35 No 51 @mailandguardian mg.co.za Cabinet report cards What’s the score? All the ministers’ marks Pages 10 to 25 2019: The moment of clarity Who’s afraid of Greta Thunberg? Pages 28 & 29 Black rebels among the blue bloods of liberalism Pages 30 & 31 Africa for optimists ... and for pessimists Pages 32 & 33 Proteas’ implosion: What do SA’s cricket men live by? Pages 34 & 35 2 Mail & Guardian December 20 2019 to January 2 2020 News A year in the life of the M&G Elections, xenophobic and vicious reporting on all these problems, and on the gender-based violence, climate collapse, social injustices that rob so many people of state-owned entities and load-shedding their futures. Editor-in-chief, Khadija Patel, — 2019 has been an insane year. The Mail writes about the year that was, what we & Guardian has been at the forefront of reported and why we reported on it here are six jars of chocolate in my office. And, despite my dedication to keeping them filled, they are Toften emptied within a few days. They join the morning coffee run in powering our newsroom with sugar and caf- feine. With a newsroom of about 50 people it also takes no small amount of madness to tell you about the world we share. As I write this, two days before our last edition of the year is published, just one jar is left, half fi lled with that festive favourite; Quality Street. They had better last until this edition is sent to print. My offi ce is in one corner of the newsroom. The windows of our eighth fl oor open up to spectacular views of Johannesburg, and it’s easy to get lost just staring at its green trees and grey cement buildings. The strains of Peter Gabriel’s Biko drifts out of the television in the middle of the newsroom. No one is pay- ing attention to it. Someone laughs. A hearty, full laugh that gets a crowd of reporters ani- mated, pointing at phone screens and gesticu- lating. The newsroom manager’s phone rings — someone has a tip-off . A big story, they say. Please can someone take the call? There’s an audible groan. Reporters are trying to fi nish off their last stories. A sub-editor, quite fed up with the din, gets up from her chair and turns the television off . It’s been a long, hard year. Just six months ago, we went to the polls. South Africa elected Cyril Ramaphosa as presi- dent. The ANC won a comfortable majority, but its dominance is being eroded — mostly by Graphic: JOHN McCANN its stubborn conviction to destroy itself. The Democratic Alliance was delivered a nosebleed Data has always been integral to journal- the high personal cost of a matric that means ism” forced on the SABC, it is an acknowledge- — notably by more conservative elements of its ism. Now, thanks to the mix of reporters and learners have no chance to have lives outside ment that this country is still here because of support base, who opted for the familiarity of algorithms, it is becoming ever more essen- of school. That reporting was infused with the tireless work of some incredible people. the Freedom Front Plus (FF+). The Economic tial to our work. Our investigative journalists, work by legal reporter Franny Rabkin. From journalists and Eskom engineers to non- Freedom Fighters, meanwhile, increased for example, have worked closely with the And, as I write this, large parts of the coun- governmental organisation workers and the its share of the vote, taking up more space in data team to fi nd stories in the numbers that try are still crippled by drought. In Australia, people cleaning campuses, people wake up Parliament — and certainly more space in the underpin much of how this country works. massive fi res are being driven by successive, each day to make South Africa work. political consciousness of the country. record-setting temperatures. In New York, the We will report more on these people. Even if Telling the strands of this larger political hile Angelo Agrizzi was laying fi rst-ever “snow squall” warning has just been we don’t have power. story strained our newsroom. It has been a bare the cult of Bosasa at the issued. Our world is changing, rapidly, and tough decade for us, with a newsroom that Zondo inquiry into state cap- journalism has struggled to report on this cli- en days before this edition was pub- W M&G shrinks when the economy has a shock, or ture earlier this year, the quick mate crisis. This is something that the lished, the electricity in our building when government advertising goes into the work of our investigations and data teams has reported on throughout its history. Now, Twent out. A power surge during a week- pages of politically connected publications. found that the state had made nearly 10 000 when you open a regular edition of the paper, end of load-shedding had left us tiptoe- In this, we are lucky to have dedicated read- payments to Bosasa, resulting in R12-billion the fi rst thing you’ll see is a climate column as ing around the parking garage in the dark, the ers who keep coming back to the Mail & for the company. Then there was the Great well as a graphic showing the latest concentra- light of our cellphones saving us from things Guardian, allowing us to keep reporting. Gupta Firesale. The full extent of the Gupta tion of carbon in the atmosphere. going bump in the night. In an unrelated inci- For the elections, this meant that the family’s empire has not yet been set out, but Women in particular will be hit by the climate dent, the lifts servicing our building had suf- M&G’s centre for data journalism, headed by as we watched bits and pieces go under the crisis, exacerbating other abuses. This year has fered water damage some weeks before. But Athandiwe Saba, was able to predict trends hammer to settle debts, the fact that the state been another one dominated by cases of hor- these lifts, in the spirit of the fourth industrial before the election. It saw the growth of the would recover nothing was a sad indictment rifi c rape and murder, with certain deaths grab- revolution, come kitted out with their own algo- FF+ and allowed us to report what this meant. of the slow pace of state-capture arrests. bing the nation’s attention. This is why we kept rithms and attitude. So getting up to the news- Investigations and politics are the bread- reporting on the murder of Viwe Dalingozi, room on the 8th fl oor is sometimes a feat of fi t- and-butter of the M&G. But this is, at its core, ensuring that a broken justice system had to do ness too great for some of us — okay, mostly me. a publication founded to dig into the injus- better in holding her killer to account. This is We’ve been in this building for eight months tices of the status quo. At fi rst, that was an why we went to Limpopo to look at the police now, leaving behind Rosebank for a space SUBSCRIPTIONS Published by M&G Media Ltd, apartheid system that systematically abused station where the most rapes in the country that feels more comfortable to an independ- Eighth Floor, Metal Box, Inquiries: 011 447 0696 or 25 Owl Street, Braamfontein SMS “subs” to 34917 and disenfranchised most of the people in are reported, and to the Eastern Cape to tell ent news publisher; a space from which we Werf, Johannesburg, South Complaints: 0860 070 700 South Africa. For the past 25 years, it has the story of Aviwe Wellem, who was murdered can look out of the windows, marvel at the city Africa. been a form of capitalism that also abuses and without consequence for the perpetrator(s). beyond and breathe. Although this year has not PO Box 91667, Auckland Park, DISTRIBUTION 2006. TO SHOPS disenfranchises. All these stories have taken their toll on our been kind to journalists, and the news media in Website: www.mg.co.za M&G Media Ltd is now Where the pressure is often to lead our newsroom. Good journalism requires that you general, the mere fact of our survival is a feat. responsible for its own newspaper and website with investigations spend time with people, talking through their Even in the best of circumstances, journalism CONTACT US newspaper distribution. and politics, this year we have put our other trauma and trying to fi nd out why abuses of is hard, but it is particularly hard right now. The Johannesburg: 011 250 7300 If you can’t find your Advertising fax: 011 250 7503 favourite read in the reporting beats at the fore. This is especially power happened. This is taxing on reporters, business model of journalism is not quite fi xed, Cape Town: 021 426 0802 shops, please phone true for the environment, in particular our who deal with the worst of our country so that the economy is moribund and newsrooms must Cape Town fax: 021 425 9056 011 447 0696 reporting on the climate crisis, the dysfunc- they can better inform the public — you. transform practice and processes to better serve Letters to the editor: [email protected] Printed by Caxton Printers tional education system, gender-based vio- In part, because you have said that reporting our audiences.