By Marlan Padayachee
Veteran media practitioner and free-speech champion Mary Bernadette Papayya will end her contribution to the board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) next month.
Pietermaritzburg-born Papayya, of Durban, where she lives with her journalist husband, Tony Oosthuizen of 28 years of marriage, has bade farewell to the state broadcaster in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, this week.
Mary Papayya, now in private media and communications consultancy, has clocked a career spanning more than three decades in print and broadcasting. A foremost pioneer in the field of journalism, she is an award winning journalist and editor renowned for her courage in reporting style and her unwavering contribution in the fight for media freedom and ethical journalism standards. She is married to Journalist and editor Tony Oosthuizen and they have two children, DJ Carly O and Jared Anthony. Papayya – now in her 50s – is one of the founders of SANEF and has played exceptional and extraordinary role in serving the organisation from inception to current for 25 years.
Her tenure on the state-owned enterprise (SOE) comes at a time when she will be integral to the hosting of the Nat Nakasa Awards by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) – an organisation she has served passionately and was always the ice of press freedom, media ethics and intimidation of journalists, especially women – at the Radisson Blu Hotel in uMhlanga from 16 to 17 September.
Papayya has shone the torch within SANEF on memorialising the legend of the Durban-born journalist Nat Nakasa. She worked with government and the municipality to preserve his gravesite in Cato Manor. The awards are hosted annually in memory and honour of Nakasa, a prominent South African journalist and writer who died in exile in New York, USA, in 1965.
“It’s the end of a journey of serving on the SABC Board since April 2019. Today was the annual general meeting with the government shareholder, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni,’’ Papayya said.
Her term will end on 15 October. When asked what was is it like serving on the board, Papayya said: “It was an honour. A journey of many learnings. The public broadcaster is a national asset and for millions of people in our country the only source of news and information. SABC has 19 radio stations, five television channels and various digital platforms. Provision of content is in all 11 official languages. As in all SOEs, leadership is critical and a board is allowed to make and take decisions for the good of the organisation and will always thrive and so will the people of our country.’’
Papayya has had a long and distinguished career at The Witness, Radio Lotus and the Sunday Times in Durban, and has been active in media organisation and political circles. She contributed to the newsroom demographic changes witnessed in the democratic order and has flown SANEF’s flag high on the press freedom front, along with stalwart colleagues like Judy Sandison and others.
Her moment of déjà vu and celebration will come next weekend when the council meeting precedes the awards banquet. Dr Navi Pillay, guest speaker, will focus on Media Ethics and Diversity in the Media at the South African National Editors Forum’s (SANEF) event taking place in the upmarket north Durban town.
SANEF Director Hopewell Radebe said the Nat Nakasa Awards and gala dinner – now in its 24th year will be preceded by a cocktail evening get-together of its members, sponsors and stakeholders on Friday, 16 September, at 6pm; and the council meeting the following day over the celebratory weekend that pays homage to the Durban-born journalist, Nat Nakasa. Editors, journalists and other media industry and academic members from around the country will gather in the city for one of the highlights of SANEF’s annual programme of events.
‘’The Nat Nakasa Awards rank among SANEF’s flagship events. The main award is handed to an individual or a team of journalists who have shown courage and tenacity in the face of enormous challenges and displayed a commitment to serve South Africans with integrity, resisted censorship, and striven for truth and accuracy in their reporting.
‘’The second award is called the Nat Nakasa Award: Community Media, awarded to ensure that courage is highlighted within the community media sector. This award is dedicated to a community media journalist and or editor who has shown integrity and reported fearlessly, displayed a commitment to serve the people of South Africa, tenaciously striven to maintain a publication or other medium despite insurmountable obstacles, resisted any censorship and shown courage in making information available to the SA public,’’ said SANEF.
- • Our group columnist, correspondent and production editor Marlan Padayachee is an associate member of SANEF, member of SAFREA and IFJ, founding executive member of MWASA, and his journalism career has straddled professional media organisations and academic institutions.
