In a fascinating, must-read interview, the SABC's new head of news and current affairs, Phathiswa Magopeni, shares what she plans to do at SABC News (new on-air graphics!) and her view on news (no politician euphoria), while the profile piece provides some heartwrenching and moving background details on her life growing up.
The Sunday Times on Sunday ran a profile interview on Phathiswa Magopeni by Gillian Anstey in which Phathiswa Magopeni noted how the SABC's SABC News "need to work on our on-air graphics because that's our image"and that she will be using in-house graphic designers for the SABC News makeover.
Phathiswa Magopeni makes fascinating statements in the interview, like saying she takes responsibility for the badness of SABC News and everything that happened their the past two years ranging from censorship and victimisation to biased and bad news coverage, saying "What I have to deal with is a product of what happened previously, but now I am responsible for it."
"I have to take responsibility for whatever happened and that becomes my starting point because if I am going to make any difference I need to acknowledge everything that has happened".
Phathiswa Magopeni said for her journalists are only "as good as your next story, not your previous story because that has passed, and that is how I treat people in my teams".
"Journalists invite themselves into factions and they fall in love with politicians, as in 'I like so-and-so's idea' and they start elevating politicians - as in this Cyril Ramaphosa euphoria you see in the media."
"It is good to have hope and we don't want to be party poopers, but we must remember we are still going to hold Cyril to account."
The Sunday Times profile piece colours in Phathiswa Magopeni's background and upbringing with some truly heartwrenching details.
She for instance grew up in Tsomo in the Eastern Cape where on Fridays pupils had to carry plastic bags of cow dung to clean the classroom floors of the Zwelixolile Senior Secondary School.
Phathiswa Magopeni's mom died when she was just 8, during the childbirth of the 5th child. Her dad was a migrant worker in Cape Town.
The family split up and she had to take care of a younger brother while she stayed with an older brother.
During her first year at university she stayed with her dad at a men's hostel in Langa in Cape Town where she had to sleep under her dad's bed.
Phathiswa Magopeni now has three sons and is married to Wilmot Magopeni and wakes up at 03:00 in the mornings to work on her PhD.
