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Her Media Diary Episode 14: "Getting my life back!" with Qaanitah Hunter
23 Plays1 year ago
Qaanitah Hunter is a multiple award-winning journalist and political editor at News24, South Africa. She is the author of 'Balance of Power: Ramaphosa and the future of South Africa' and recently co-authored a book called 'Eight Days in July: Inside the Zuma unrest that set South Africa alight'.
In this episode, Qaanitah shares her journey from childhood through her rise to fame and finding a voice to advocate for mental health after battling with depression.
Qaanitah’s story is that of determination and sacrifice fueled by her childhood desire to reach the peak of her career against all odds.
This episode is dedicated to every journalist out there who have experienced a decline in their mental health and sincerely wants to be the voice of change towards helping others navigate the media space without losing their true self.
Subscribe to Her Media Diary now on your favourite podcasting platform https://linktr.ee/hermediadiary
Learn about African Women in Media https://africanwomeninmedia.com
List of organisations for support with your mental health
Africa mental health research and training foundation
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Transcript
Introduction to Qaanita Hunter's Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
She was a 19-year-old journalist. She had a book published. She was a 20-year-old journalist. She won her first award, a national award. She's won, you know, this many awards. But it definitely comes with a personal tour. Because I say to people, you see the highlights, right? You see the byline. You see the awards. You see the interviews and television. What you don't see is the depression, unable to get out of bed.
00:00:23
Speaker
the obesity that comes with depression, the inability to live a functioning life and have to literally outsource my life and actually not have a life outside of journalism.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Her Media Diary, a broadcast that captures the lived experiences of African women working in media industries. I am Dr. Yemisi Akimbobola, and in this episode, I'm joined by Juanita Hunter, politics editor at News24 in South Africa. She's also a mental health activist, co-author of Eight Days in July, Balance of Power, Ramaphosa and the Future of South Africa.
00:01:11
Speaker
Today, Coneta and I discuss her work on mental health and the media. Thank you so much, Coneta Hunter. Thank you for doing this interview. Would you like to start off by telling us about yourself, what you do, et cetera?
Role at News24 and Political Career
00:01:24
Speaker
Thank you very much for having me. I am Coneta Hunter. I am the political editor of News24 in Johannesburg, South Africa. I'm basically in charge of our
00:01:35
Speaker
political coverage on South Africa's biggest news site, News24. It's part of the Media24 stable. I've been covering politics for 10 years in South Africa and have done a little bit of reporting in other countries, mostly from a South African foreign relations perspective. I've
00:01:54
Speaker
I've written a book on the president. A lot of my career had been focused on covering the office of the president. In 2019, I published a book called Balance of Power, Ramaphosa and the Future of South Africa, on the incumbent president, Cyril Ramaphosa. Before that, when I was still a rookie reporter, I'd published a chiclet novel.
00:02:15
Speaker
I'm not kidding. It's called Diary of a Gujigal, which ironically did really well at the time, even though I was extremely embarrassed about it as a political reporter. The thing that made me popular at the time was a chicken novel, but it was obviously an experience. And I am currently a master's student at the University of Wodwatersrand.
Early Beginnings in Journalism
00:02:42
Speaker
I want to go back to the early years of Kenita Hunter, just to really understand your background and where you come from. I'm really interested in this. Did you call it a chickette novel? Yeah, like a chick flick. Right, I get you. How old were you when you did that, when you wrote that? I was 19, I believe.
00:03:05
Speaker
So my start in journalism was completely unorthodox because I literally and I mean, you could call it fake, you could call it stupidity. I mean, probably a bit of both. But I mean, I always knew I wanted to be a journalist. So from the time I remember listening to news and reading newspapers. And it's something I grew up with, because we never
00:03:29
Speaker
watch television as a form of entertainment in our home. So your options were reading books, reading newspapers, or listening to the radio. Or if you did watch television, it would be for the news. That was how our house was. And I became obviously very interested in politics at a very, very young age. And I was actually sent to a home school. So that was my early beginnings. And then after I had finished school, I didn't
00:03:58
Speaker
even wait for my results, gotten onto a bus. I had emailed a few editors from different organizations and I said please I will work for you for free because I had some months before I would have to start my tertiary education and I really wanted to be this journalist and I couldn't care about university and I literally stalked
00:04:16
Speaker
one man until he finally said, okay, you know, come along in. I was 17. I didn't even have a CV, I think, because I didn't even have my magic result. So I had like random courses that I did in school and, you know, nothing serious at all. And I convinced him that I will work for him for free and he doesn't have to pay me, even though I was in a new city.
00:04:39
Speaker
I was staying away, I left home, and I was just, you know, so determined to make it as a journalist. And my luck had it that a week into the job, the newsfeeder in the mornings had quit unexpectedly. And I was sort of thrown into that deep end and said, okay, just do the here you go.
00:04:56
Speaker
I did everything in those years in my formative years. I've done news reading, I did news production, I did lifestyle production, then I started writing stories. This news organization that I worked for didn't really focus too much on going on the ground.
00:05:13
Speaker
So if I wanted to go on the ground, I would have had to finish my work for the day, you know, read my news bulletins, produce my shows. And then, you know, I would take public transport and go down and try to cover political event. It was not something that was, you know, I didn't have anyone guiding me. So I literally would just take a taxi downtown and there'd be a protest and I'd try to report on it and I would listen to how colleagues would do it. And then eventually I got an internship at a newspaper. Again, I think how I got that internship was a miracle because
00:05:43
Speaker
I literally had my CV was first year of university and that was distance learning as well. By that time I had covered so many political events because I was just so determined to do and so and again took a lot of stalking from my part because I was up against like you know people with their master's degrees in communications and journalism and I really wanted this internship again was like
00:06:05
Speaker
because by that time I was earning a salary. And so I took a 50% pay cut for a stipend and I was like, it's fine. I was 18 and I was covering the president and covering political events. And yeah, I've been doing so for the last 10 years. Right. There's so much in that kind of, you know, brief overview of what sounds as like a very exciting early years in journalism. I want us to go all the way back.
00:06:31
Speaker
like all the way back to young, 5 years old, and really tell us about your early youth races in those days. And it's really interesting that, anytime I do these interviews, 9 out of 10 times, there's always that I grew up reading newspapers, I grew up reading books and watching the news. So tell us how all of that shaped you at the early ages, and would you really want to know about you in those early years?
Influence of Upbringing and Overcoming Dyslexia
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, so like I said, you know, I grew up in a city called Durban, a coastal city in South Africa. And I grew up in a conservative Muslim home. And like I said, I was sent to a home school, not a normal mainstream school, or girls homeschool with very few kids, less than 10 kids.
00:07:15
Speaker
So home school basically is boarding school? No, no, no. So it's like sort of, you know, acutals would come to someone's house and you would then you would then go to the school. Right. Like I said, you know, watching television for entertainment was just not something that we did in our house. And so what fascinated me is, you know, when I was much younger, we would if I did watch television, it would be CNN. And then if it later on, it was Al Jazeera. And so I remember being like nine years old.
00:07:42
Speaker
also, and I take a hairbrush, and lots of my aunts and friends can recall, you know, practicing my sign off, like, Kalita hunter, Al Jazeera, Beirut, you know. And I was very little, I was very little. And you know, it was later on when I was eventually completing my high school, the main tutor that, you know, was in charge of others, our
00:08:07
Speaker
curriculum. He was almost devastated because he was like, why would you want to become a journalist? You know, you're such an intelligent child. And my, you know, my academic grades for someone who was homeschooled was incredible. And so it was like, you know, like, what are you throwing your life away? You know, and then it was it was even worse when I had said, I'm not going to university, because that was the expectation of why I came to Jobin, that I was just going to sort of
00:08:31
Speaker
you know, get a feel of what journalism was and then go to university. And then I just thought, I'm not going to university, I will study part time. And then I'll just, you know, work as a journalist for whoever will employ me and I'll make coffee if I have to. But
00:08:47
Speaker
I'll do what I need to do. So what was it like? You said that you grew up in a conservative Muslim home. What was that like for you as a young girl? And what does that mean to you? I mean, it's everything I knew. And I mean, like when I say to people that I came from a conservative Muslim home,
00:09:02
Speaker
But at the same time when I describe my childhood, it almost feels like a paradox or a juxtaposition of sort because my parents were free thinkers, especially my mom. And she was very, very, very much into, you know, seize every opportunity, do things. I mean, we were not very wealthy in comparison to probably the community that we lived in.
00:09:24
Speaker
But we were not short of any opportunities. And I come from a big family. We had six siblings. We had a few almost adopted kids that grew up with us, and very politically conscious. And I try to think where that comes from. And I don't really know. It was just that sort of the temperature. Because the society in which I grew up was not politically conscious at all. If anything, they were oblivious.
00:09:47
Speaker
right to the political dynamics of South Africa, because of the class being an elitist class, et cetera. But in our household, there was this political consciousness. There wasn't the sort of restriction of what you could be. And I often think about the fact that I'd come from a relatively poor family, and it was never a thing in my mind that I could never be a journalist. It was like, no, the world is your oyster, kind of.
00:10:11
Speaker
And, you know, like I said, the radio was a very big part of our growing up. So we, you know, we'd huddle around the radio and we'd have discussions about it because I had older sisters and an older sister who was also involved, not involved, but also interested in the news and politics. And so we'd have, you know, we'd watch or we'd listen to CNN. I remember, you know, in the early 2000s after, you know, what happened in the U.S. politics and, you know, have discussions about that.
00:10:38
Speaker
you know, I was very young and I would maybe 12 or 13 and I would go downtown when there would be a political rally just to see what it's like, you know, and maybe have a glimpse of the then former deputy president, you know, was facing trial in the same city that I was in. So that was that was the kind of environment we lived through books.
00:10:57
Speaker
I have sort of a mild form of dyslexia, which is really ironic because I'm a writer now. And my primary school teachers don't believe that I've ever became a writer because I really, really struggled with reading and writing when I was younger, struggled really, really terribly. And I have a sister that's a year older than me. She would be reading books and I would struggle through it. And I was much older when I started
00:11:22
Speaker
reading. And then once I got into it, I realized, okay, I actually don't enjoy reading fiction, but I enjoy reading politics. And so I would read, you know, my old sister's political books and later on get access to libraries where within, you know, borrow Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, you know, a Zakes from Da or that kind of sort of genre of reading that really spoke to me, nonfiction. And I think that the library was a massive part of our childhood.
00:11:50
Speaker
And that's what that would our holidays be, because we'd have nothing else to do. So we'd just sit and read books the entire December summer holidays. So speaking about Mandela, in terms of the race issues in South Africa, how did that shape your growing up in this space?
Pursuit of Journalism in Johannesburg
00:12:05
Speaker
So I had a neighbour who
00:12:07
Speaker
who now is a diplomat, but at the time she was just a social worker, but she was heavily involved in the ANC and she was, she identifies as an Indian and we socially identified as, you know, my mum was an Indian South African. And so, but she was involved in the ANC and she, through her and my mum, when she was younger, she was also
00:12:30
Speaker
very much active in the student anti-apartheid movement. And so it was almost sort of second nature to ask my dad when he was 12, because he later got very ill, it was almost a thing of understanding your role, understanding privilege, understanding discrimination. But my introduction to our history, as it were,
00:12:54
Speaker
in terms of the role of the ANC in the liberation of the country. The different figures beyond Mandela and beyond what you learn in school came from this neighbor of mine. And she often would give me the newspapers that I would read and I would ask her questions. And it's just crazy now that she's a diplomat and now, and she is immensely proud. She can just remember this eight-year-old asking her questions about the
00:13:21
Speaker
Who's this man on your fridge? And she's like, oh, it's Mandela, or Tabun Berki, or whoever it may have been. You mentioned that you have dyslexia. How have you navigated that, especially given that you're an editor now? So how have you navigated that through the time?
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I have to be extra. I mean, I've obviously learned to work around my limitations. It's not severe in any case. As I said, when I was younger, it was mostly undiagnosed because my mother who had picked it up, you know, that obviously this is not laziness. So, you know, this is someone who really struggles. And again, it's the irony of it. And that's why smartphones have been the
00:14:02
Speaker
my lifesaver because I take notes on my smartphone like pen to paper. I put pen to paper and I cannot understand anything I've written. And so a smartphone works incredible for me. I am able to take notes and I've learned my way around it also because I know that that's my limitation. And finally enough, I mean, there was obviously lots of errors in my first book that I'd written. So when I was writing The Balance of Power, the book on the president,
00:14:30
Speaker
I was so pedantic about it that then, as a result, you're almost too particular because you know that this is your limitation and that you have the density of making mistakes in terms of writing. But it's just something that I've adopted. And if I say it out loud now, I had said it to an editor who asked me to take notes and I said, you won't be able to read my writing.
00:14:52
Speaker
type it out very quickly for you. And then he's like, the hell, you're a writer? And I'm like, yeah, don't really give me a pen. So I just sort of referred to one of my quirks. But I mean, I remember being in school and being penalized for the fact that my teachers just couldn't read my writing. And it was just something they just couldn't do. And I sort of just learned to navigate and get through it.
00:15:18
Speaker
And you mentioned earlier on that at the age of, I think you said 17, you took your boss to a new city to discover the world of journalism. Just talk us through your mindset in that moment, like how did you arrive at that decision? What was your emotions? What were you thinking about as you were making this kind of journey on this boss and making your way to try to be as dogged as you've demonstrated in your explanations to get the job that you want in journalism?
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, so my instinct was that I had this time, I had a few months before I had to wait for my results to come out, let alone decide what I'm going to study. So I thought, okay, why not? So what I did was my mom's sister stays about 60 kilometers from Johannesburg. And then I knew an aunt, another lady that I grew up with, she worked
00:16:04
Speaker
close to the office where I would remember, I don't have the job. He just gave me a meeting. So I had phoned her and asked her, if I come to Jobook, would I be able to travel with you? And this is not even Jobook, this is like 50 games away from Janice. And she was almost too stumped to say no.
00:16:23
Speaker
you know. And also I didn't, I mean, like when I think about it now, I just, in my mind, it wasn't, it wasn't meant to be a permanent thing. It was like, like everyone around me thought, ah, she's going for two weeks and she will come back. And so I used to tutor and I would make some money. I had that money. I had a brand new blackberry because I had finished school. And that was the gift that I had asked for. So I'd gotten a blackberry, which I had paid hard for. And then my mom had
00:16:49
Speaker
paid half for. And then I had one bag of clothes, one bag of books, and literally I only owned one pair of shoes. And I came to Johannesburg and it was the start of winter. So it was really cold. And I come from a coastal, hot, humid climate.
00:17:04
Speaker
And so I get into this bus and it's the cheapest bus because my mom had given me the money for the ticket and I said, okay, I can pocket. If I take a cheaper bus, I can pocket the change. So I had about 500 rand in my wallet and 200 rand I had put in my, that was the change of the ticket, bus ticket that I didn't use the whole amount because I used a cheaper bus ticket. And I put that in my sock for some weird reason. And only afterwards I would be so grateful that I did that.
00:17:34
Speaker
because our arrival in Johannesburg in the very notorious park station, it's very notorious, someone with a knife cut my handbag open and stole my wallet. So it was a baptism of fire. I was like, yeah, welcome to Johannesburg.
00:17:52
Speaker
You would have thought that I would have heard my lesson and oh, the amount of times I've been mugged in Johannesburg after that. And you know, that's why I say, you know, probably was stupidity because it was this naivety of this dream of sorts that was just bigger than any hurdle that came up. So did it mean that I had to wake up at 4 a.m. to leave home at 5.30 to get to work at 6.30 to avoid traffic? And, you know, did it mean having to eat
00:18:21
Speaker
Eventually, I had to pay rent from a very small salary, and then didn't mean eating two-minute noodles. But I don't know what you guys call two-minute noodles. It was worth it. I was saying to someone very recently that it's so weird that it's been a 10-year hassle, effectively.
00:18:44
Speaker
And only now am I catching my breath to the point of, oh, girl, you've achieved all of this, or you've come a long way. I think I looked at it as like, it just needed to be like I had to survive to the next step. And an outrageous amount of work to keep afloat, whether it was not only financially, but also to get ahead in my career. So yes, I was
00:19:03
Speaker
producing at this radio station. But I begged this website, please, can you publish me? I'll write for fee. And then eventually they started paying me. And then I was writing a very low paid journalist working at a newspaper, but then pleading with the political editor, hey, I will do my normal stories, but can I do political stories on my day off in the evenings or whatever?
00:19:26
Speaker
You know, it was then, okay, once I got a grip of the political space in terms of newspaper reporting, okay, when can I do television? Okay, can I do television in the nights? Okay, fine. Then, you know, got my big break. Then it was, okay, what is the next step going to be? Okay, you know, I'm unable to live within this very small salary. Okay, I will go back to news anchoring from 6am to 8am, then go to my newspaper job from 9am to 6pm.
00:19:54
Speaker
and then still study on evenings and on weekends. So that was my hustle and my drive. What you've described there is basically dogged determination. You knew what you wanted and you went straight after it and you did what you had to do to get what you wanted.
Success and Mental Health Struggles
00:20:10
Speaker
If you were to give
00:20:11
Speaker
10 years on it, I mean it's been just over 10 years, right, that you made this journey. What advice would you give to yourself back then? Like looking back now, looking how far you've come, going back to that time, what advice would you have given yourself at that time? Stop wasting so much of money on food.
00:20:29
Speaker
I think a lot of us can agree to that in terms of our lives as well. I think that's definitely an advice I'd like to give myself. No, I think that I should have been more respectful of the achievements that I had accomplished along the way. I think that I was very dismissive. So I know this sounds quite bizarre, but I would, you know, I was, I was 20 years old and I was having sit down interviews with the head of state.
00:20:58
Speaker
Right. And in my mind, why was I not having interviews with Barack Obama? It sounds bizarre. It sounds completely bizarre. But I mean, that was the fire that was lit in me. But at the same time, it was, I think, my Achilles heel that I didn't give myself that respect to say, girl, you've done
00:21:17
Speaker
so much and I think only now and I mean it took probably some good years of therapy and oh another advice that I would give myself is start therapy like can you not just start therapy because therapy literally changed my life because I mean and I think the hardest part
00:21:35
Speaker
of having this terrible, if you call it terrible, this insatiable determination to succeed as a journalist is that you don't take seriously the knocks that life throws at you and so then it culminates into really, really, really terrible consequences on your mental health because you had this ambition and
00:21:54
Speaker
it was all part of this big plan. So whether it's going on a story and seeing dead bodies or witnessing protests or being literally bullied by national politicians and ministers at a very young age and them obviously taking advantage of it. I think that I would be more cautious of the consequences of that and be a lot more gentle with myself. Let's talk a bit more about mental health. What are your experiences with it in those years?
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, thankfully I come from a family where my dad suffered from a mental illness and so there was a lot of openness in my family about it and it was something that we, in my immediate family at least, something that we spoke about because we had to deal with it so we had to be educated about mental illness. But obviously when you're in the moment, you're not realising how much sun grenades and rubber bullets and everything come and also just the difficulty of work and life and
00:22:51
Speaker
you know, trying to make it as a literally struggling student, you know, from month to month and trying to be a political journalist. Obviously, it comes the whole of, you know, baggage. And so it was only when I had hit rock bottom, I was already, one may argue, at the peak of my career in 2018, when I suffered the death of my mom, but I had to, you know,
00:23:14
Speaker
rebound very quickly because there was a big internal AMC election that had to be covered. It was just the next thing, next thing, next thing that I then started going for intensive trauma therapy and realized how much your work and how much our lives as journalists, you can't just regard it as, you know, it's that thing of just take it on the chin and keep it moving.
00:23:36
Speaker
And I'm very grateful for the people in my life who had encouraged me to go for therapy in a way that made me strong enough to almost start a movement in my newsroom and then now hoping now to get it across all newsrooms to create an awareness about mental health. And I think what I did was I took my experience and I said, okay, I'm going to use this now as my ammunition to fight the cause for mental health and awareness and for therapy and for health.
00:24:05
Speaker
that experience. And remember, it sounds quite heroic, you know, she was a 19 year old journalist, she had a book published, she was a 20 year old journalist, she won her first award, national award, she's won, you know, this many awards, but it definitely comes with a personal tour. And the thing is, I was disrespectful of how much it took for me, you know, until now where I was able to say, okay, this job is great to kill me.
00:24:31
Speaker
If I don't, because I say to people, you see the highlights, right? You see the byline, you see the wards, you see the interviews and television. What you don't see is the depression, unable to get out of bed, the obesity that comes with depression, the inability to live a functioning life and have to literally outsource my life and actually not have a life outside of journalism, which is, I mean, the part where people don't tell you that, you know, to
00:24:58
Speaker
And I think that it can be changed. I think when I started in journalism, it was, you know, someone had sat me down one day and said, can I give you a tequila because you are going to be an alcoholic. So let me show you how to be a functioning one. And I said, you know, I don't drink, you know, I really, and she says, but you will, because that's the only way you're going to be able to succeed as a political reporter. And, you know, I feel like the world has changed from that, you know, that, you know, that gritty, you know, it's almost
00:25:24
Speaker
you know, don't be a pantsy about how it was 10 years ago. It literally was that. And I'm happy that, you know, earlier this morning we had a webinar for our subscribers at News24 discussing a protest movement called the Fismus Fall. Crisis are worth it. But is it really? Hmm.
00:25:41
Speaker
It's so great that you speak so openly about mental health and about that journey and the toll it takes on you personally. It's that balance really between your ambition to succeed in a particular field and doing what you need. Well, not just doing what you need to do, but doing what the industry dictates that you need to do to achieve that, right? And then also in terms of you as a human being, because you're going to be alive to reap the rewards of your hard work, right?
00:26:09
Speaker
So I think there's almost mental health within journalism. It's not something that we speak hardly enough about.
Advocacy for Mental Health in Journalism
00:26:16
Speaker
I think there's a dialogue that needs to be had within organizations about actually what is the industry doing actually, right? For people like yourself 10 years ago who are trying to get in, for people in it now, in particular, how are organizations actually protecting the mental health of its journalists? I think that's a really important conversation to be had.
00:26:37
Speaker
And, you know, I love what you said earlier on about respecting your achievements along the way. And I think that's part of it, you know, having that moment of taking stock because our, that journey of getting to the point that you want to get to is almost like the new cycle as well. They're so fast moving, you know.
00:26:53
Speaker
so fast-changing and just taking that moment of stock. So, really, thank you so much for speaking so openly about the impact of all of that on your mental health. I mean, and I don't want to jump the gun, but just to say that I've realized and I've decided that I don't know how, but mental health is going to be my next 10 years. So, if I can make
00:27:12
Speaker
a small difference with creating actionable change within journalism and mental health in journalism. I'm okay with that. But I know that if you ask me what does the next 10 years look like, it looks like a great focus on that, a great focus on not only creating awareness, because I think in the last three years, from when I started speaking about this and, you know, create workshops and speaking to people, there's been
00:27:34
Speaker
a lot of awareness, but there has been a lot of awareness. But the problem is, the problem comes at how do you create tangible solutions and create mechanisms for help. And that's where my focus hopefully is going to be in the next chapter of my
Navigating Gender Imbalances and Mentorship
00:27:52
Speaker
life. And that is such an important thing that I think it's going to be really an interesting next step for you in your career.
00:27:59
Speaker
Talking about your career, I'm looking at all the roles, political reporter at TNA, media, political reporter at Mail and Guardian, at Sunday Times, and now political editor at News24. I think South Africa, more than a lot of other African countries, have done better in terms of that gender balance in editorial leadership, right?
00:28:20
Speaker
What has been your journey in terms of getting to this point of leadership? We know about your focus on politics and all that in that management level. What has been your kind of journey in that? Yeah, so especially in the type of reporter that I was, I never ever considered ever becoming an editor, particularly because for the lack of a better word, I love the streets a lot and I do love the streets a lot.
00:28:44
Speaker
There's a part of me, and just to digress a little, there's a part of me that has a serious amount of what millennials call FOMO, when there's big political court cases, to the point that last year, I sent a team down to restate another province to come a very big and momentous political corruption case, and I couldn't help myself, and I caught a lift and I went, because I just, you know, in terms of my experience with the gender balance.
00:29:11
Speaker
I think that, you know, when I started, all my editors were male. When I got to the male and guardian, the editor in chief was a female and the political editor was a female. And that particular political editor, whom I still remain very close to, her name is Menele de Matabouke, she changed my life in the way of allowing me. A lot of what I did was, you know, self-starting and, you know,
00:29:34
Speaker
But what I learned from Manaledi's leadership was, you can still be endearing, you can still be kind. Because, you know, I had an editor at some point who would literally be drunk on the job and would throw things and, you know, he almost becomes, you know, that's it. The face of leadership in journalism is an angry male. And when I worked with Manaledi, that, I mean,
00:29:56
Speaker
politicians would never not answer her calls. And yet she had this very endearing, kind humanness about her. And that shaped me profoundly in ways that this is how you assert yourself in a newsroom. This is how you fight a fight. Don't lose yourself. If you are not this person, if you're not this completely vicious person,
00:30:18
Speaker
And that for me was incredible. Then, you know, I then worked in a newsroom on a team that was very, you know, sort of patriarchal, what I can even say. And that experience working with Mena Lady gave me the tools to see
00:30:33
Speaker
that, okay, this is patriarchy at work. And I mean, there was an experience very early on in my career, in 2013, when Mandela died. And I mean, this was not malicious in any way, but this was just institutionalized patriarchy, right? Where I had covered everything. So from the moment Mandela died, all the events around his home
00:30:53
Speaker
the memorials, the big heads of state, everything. It was back to back for two weeks of coverage. We were literally working 15-hour, 16-hour days. And then it's like the epitome, the history-making, Mandela being laid to rest in his hometown of Pono in the Eastern Cape. And I was told, no, Q, you can't go because we're sending so-and-so mail reporter because it would be easier for him to relieve himself on the side of the road in the rural area. And again... That's a new one.
00:31:23
Speaker
I mean, it was not malicious. It was just so second nature that a man would do this better. And it fired something in me that there was nothing, you know, I had gotten married in quite young in 2015, you know, up to the night before I was, I got married.
00:31:40
Speaker
you know, busy on this very big story, the president at the time fired the finance minister, the markets crash. I literally was still busy on that story until the night before I got elected, you know, and gave me that thing off, you know. But you see, you see the gender imbalance, you see the amount of sacrifice women journalists have to go through. Even though now, there's almost a disproportionate, I mean, women are almost in the majority. But when it comes to managerial level, or where it really matters, it's not
00:32:08
Speaker
proportionate, and I think a lot more work needs to be done. Also, what's important for me, it's not pointing female editors, it's easy to appoint female editors. For me, the real litmus test in transformation, especially about gender and race, is grooming female journalists and black journalists, grooming them
00:32:27
Speaker
for that position. So when they take it over, they're taking over, setting them on a path of success. That's where I find my responsibility now. Having gotten into a managerial position at a very young age, I was appointed political editor of News24, I was 26, I turned 27 last year, working with a team of people who are much older than I am, even my own subordinates, you know, way older than I am.
00:32:52
Speaker
But having that support and being trained in a way that I am able to successfully execute my job as a political editor because I'm given the tools that I need to do my job correctly. And I think that had I been thrown in the deep end and just been told to swim, I think that it would have been not counterproductive for my own career.
00:33:11
Speaker
but for the promotion of women journalists. And it's interesting there how kind of the onus is always kind of on the one person that makes it to that position to make sure they set a good enough example so that it doesn't start an end with them. So that's all for it. And that the door is not closed behind it because that's the thing it's called moral licensing, right? So they appoint one female.
00:33:31
Speaker
so that, you know, look at us, we believe in gender parity in executive positions. And I'm saying this for corporates all over the world, not particularly any news from that I've worked in. And so what happens is you are let in, but the door is firmly shut behind you. And I think that was something that I had to get through my own consciousness to say, you're opening the door for me. I'm very happy. We have to actively keep the door open for females behind me.
00:33:57
Speaker
And that's the dilemma I have now, where, you know, there aren't other young creators being given opportunities and being gambled on, you know, because the editors who had hired me at 18 and 19 literally took a gamble. You know, suffice to say, they paid me a
00:34:13
Speaker
It wasn't too much of a risk, but that's why I think the problem in South Africa at the moment is that we're not growing our own timber in terms of political reporting. What happens is you're relying on the same pool of political or not even political,
00:34:28
Speaker
specialist journalists and not giving people opportunities because it's too risky to give people opportunities. And I think that I come from the experience because I was lucky enough to have bettered on really to now I cannot forget that experience. And that's something that's at the foremost of my mind in my work to say, how can I extend these opportunities for other people? I read somewhere that you quietly thank Jacob Sumer for making your journalism career. I couldn't quite understand it. So explain that to us.
00:34:58
Speaker
So Jacob Zuma was the president when I started, right, as a political reporter, 18 years old. There was not a shortage of news and there was so much happening in the country that the editors were forced to send me out and cover these massive stories.
00:35:13
Speaker
And so I ended up becoming the unofficial Jacob Zuma reporter, and at some point I was very young. So again, you're young and you're naive and you're stupid, right? So I had nothing to lose, right? What does a 19-year-old or 20-year-old have to lose? So I would just go stop the president and get the most phenomenal stories.
00:35:34
Speaker
because I just didn't care. Now I would think twice about door-stopping a president and being as flippant as I was and just as hungry as I was at the time. A lot of people misconstrue when I make the joke that I thank Jacob Zuma for my careers because earlier on I had worked
00:35:51
Speaker
for a TNA, which became a very much part of the Jacob Zuma patronage network. I had left, you know, once the cracks had started emerging. And ironically, very soon after I had left, I then started reporting on my bosses, who effectively gave me an opportunity of a lifetime hiring someone in first year university to cover politics. Yet I had to then report on the same people once it became known how much of a part they had played in
00:36:19
Speaker
the looting and capturing of the South African
Covering Politics and Collaboration Opportunities
00:36:22
Speaker
state. And in Balancing of Power, you said earlier and you wrote about Ramaphosa's elections as president in South Africa.
00:36:30
Speaker
How did that book come about? And just tell us that journey of developing that book and the impact it's had. OK, my big moment in covering politics, I mean, I'd covered it for two years before that, but that was like, you know, what made me into the big leagues. And at that conference, from a post I was appointed, I was elected deputy president of the ANC. And so then I sort of followed him unofficially over the years and covered him immensely. And then when the ANC leadership battle began,
00:36:55
Speaker
I took an immense focus on him and became close to people around him and then focused on his election as president of the ANC. And then later on his election, he then became president of the country and then focused my time on covering him. So I traveled with him. Thankfully, I was working at the Sunday Times. As long as I had given them the stories that was expected, I had the latitude to just travel with the president. And some of it was
00:37:23
Speaker
I'd paid for myself. Sometimes the Sunday Times would pay. Other times it hustled up to Nigeria. When Ramaphosa went to Nigeria, I'd hustle the left on his plane in his meeting with President Buhari. The idea of how the way the book started and where it ended, it obviously took off. Initially, it almost had a biographical start, and then it became, okay, I'm focusing in this part of history.
00:37:46
Speaker
It's very difficult to write about a president at the onset of their career. I mean, not their career, but their presidency. And it almost felt impossible midway through the hike. Oh my goodness. But there was so much to write about. And I was trusted by so many people, considering that I had been doing this for a long time, to speak to me quite candidly. And ironically, there's a group of people who have fallen out with the president, right? The president.
00:38:13
Speaker
who initially used to accuse me, being his praysinger, in their fighting of him, I'm using my book to say, see, this is the smell. If I'm criticized by all parties, I know I was free and objective. So it sounds like there's been a lot of focus, a lot of bravery, a lot of just being really clear about where you want to get in your journey. And as we round up then,
00:38:38
Speaker
if there was the one single advice you could give to the person listening to this podcast.
00:38:43
Speaker
about that journey, about them taking that journey, what would that be? I think you get good mentors. I think that I wouldn't have been able to do this without some level of mentorship. And I think that I'm very appreciative of what the people taught me, literally in the thick of things. And I'm very respectful of that. And yes, formal training is very important. But you know, that kind of mentorship is something even now as a political editor, I rely on
00:39:08
Speaker
certain people to give me guidance in some of the decisions that I have to take. I think a big part of my journey has been being remaining human and understanding your strengths and weaknesses as a human being and how that you could use that in your favor or not. And I think that relying heavily on my humanity had allowed me, oh, allowed people to trust me, politicians and newsmakers, etc., to trust me. And I think that I would not give that up.
00:39:33
Speaker
you know, that humanity. The third thing I think is to learning to speak up in a way that is just not noise. And a perfect part of my career, I'd made noise, you know, because I'll always a loud mouth, but then I realized, okay, noise is one thing, but how do we make meaningful change?
00:39:50
Speaker
Obviously, that comes with a little bit of power and once you have power, you can make that change. But I do think that the starting conversations, typical conversations around transformation, around gender parity, about media freedom, about brown envelope journalism, if you must, ethical journalism, I think that those conversations must be started in a way that can affect meaningful change. And I think that's something that I would
00:40:16
Speaker
something that would put on top of my mind, okay, am I making noise for the sake of making noise, or am I making noise to affect change? And of course, mental health, as we've talked about earlier on, and trying to make change there. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kenita, for doing this interview. It's been a pleasure hearing your story.
00:40:33
Speaker
hearing your journey. And I'm sure people listening to this podcast would like to contact you. So what is the best way for them to get in touch with you, whether social media or email? Okay, so my social media, I'm active on Twitter, you can contact me at QAANITAH, H-U-N-T-R. On Twitter, you can email me QAANITAH,
00:40:58
Speaker
I love to chat to other colleagues in the continent. And who knows, perhaps our focus on mental health and journalism can become a continental-wide project. Exactly. Thank you very much, Kanita.
00:41:17
Speaker
Quenita's story is that of determination and sacrifice, fueled by the drive to reach the peak of her career and achieving her childhood ambition and to become a voice to reckon with in a field against all odds. I hope you find inspiration and courage from her story.
00:41:38
Speaker
If you would like to join me on an episode of this podcast, please contact me at GMC at AfricanWomenInMedia.com. You can also visit our main website at AfricanWomenInMedia.com to find out more about our work. In the show notes, there's a list of organisations and helplines to support you if you have experienced any of the topics we have discussed today. And don't forget, join the conversation using the hashtag HerMediaDiary.
00:42:09
Speaker
Her Media Diary is a product of African women in media, an NGO advocating for gender equality in the industry. And this episode was hosted by Dr. Yamisia Kimbewola and produced by Blessen Utiabasi as part of a five episode series on mental health in the media. All music featured in this podcast is by Nana Korpena. Thanks for listening and join us again next time.