Inhoud -SJI 1995- Index

market insight

Aggrey demystified

Aggrey Klaaste is a modest man who has demystified the long-held belief that blacks can’t write about their own experiences. Emerging from three eras of draconian policies against the press - particularly the black press - he escaped unscathed and went on to lead one of the country’s most successful daily newspapers, Sowetan - the bastion of black journalism and founder of Nation Building. He shared some of his ideas with Muzi Mkhwanazi and Thabiso Tserema.

Could you tell us about the history of the Black Press through your personal experiences?

Klaaste: Fortunately, I come from three eras of journalism in this country. In the sixties, I freelanced for Drum and Golden City Post. That was an interesting era as there were no black newspapers to speak of. There was Bantu World, predecessor of this newspaper, which was then, as now, owned by Argus. It was just a lousy bi-weekly rag which dealt with sports and sex and did not make money at all. It was inconsequential.

The papers of consequence in the black market were of two types. Drum and Zonk, which were magazines, and Golden City Post, a Sunday paper. Those papers were typical of their times. It was a township vibe-thing: township beauty queens, township jazz, and township sports.

I’m not saying those journalists never dealt with very serious political matters, because they did. For instance, Henry Nxumalo, whom they called "Mr Drum", did a story about the potato-farms scandal. Black people were arrested, sent to jail and sold to farmers in Bethal, and these farmers used to bury people on their farms!

Another important story in those years was done by a photographer of friend mine, Bob Gosani. From a nearby building, he took pictures of the men in prison in Hillbrow. That story led to the first Prisons Act. The government said no newspapers could report on prisons without the permission of the Commissioner of Prisons.

Reporters in those years had good educational backgrounds. Ken Temba had a B.A. degree and Casey Motsisi went to a good missionary school. The guys in the sixties wrote very well because they considered themselves, not as black reporters, but as artists. They behaved like artists too, of course, they drank too much and most of them died of booze.

In 1955 Bantu Education began, and the situation went bad. We had young stars coming into journalism in the seventies who could not express themselves very well. But they were carrying a significant political burden.

The seventies were interesting in two ways. Firstly, 1974 was the year of Mozambique’s independence. There was a lot of political activity in the townships. It was also the time of Black Consciousness and Steve Biko. Many were arrested in this period. A black journalist was perceived to be a guerilla with a pen.

At that time the Black press, specifically World, came of age and black trade unions also began to assume respectability in the eyes of their owners and the government. Prior to that, newspapers like World were just considered ordinary rags. They did not make money and had black editor figure-heads with white people behind them.

The problem was Bantu Education, which meant those guys were unskilled. They wrote 'advocacy journalism', which is not the best of writing because it’s angry and revolutionary. They took on the cause of the struggle because they were fighting political thought in their writing.

In 1974, World’s editor was Percy Qoboza. He was quite something. He came in after the Frelimo rallies; a politically interesting time. During this period the political temperature shot up and news was really happening in black areas. In 1977, even Afrikaans newspapers like Beeld began to employ their first black journalists.

Why were you and Percy Qoboza arrested in 1977?

Klaaste: We were arrested for absolutely nothing. I think everybody was angry about Steve Biko’s death, and the paper came out very strongly against this.

The major reason for our arrest was the formation of the Committee of Ten at the World offices. This was after the Soweto Student Represantative Council threw the Community Councillors out of Soweto. There were no local authorities, so we decided, as World, to form one, with people from all political organisations.

The paper was very radical and anti-government which is why Percy was arrested. Obviously there were no charges. People were just taken away and detained indefinitely. Jimmy Kruger was the Minister of Justice then. He is the man who said Steve Biko’s death left him cold. There were extraordinary, terrible things happening, and most of us were angry at the government.

In the past the South African Press was divided along racial and political lines. How did Sowetan fare in cases where it had to criticise liberation movements ?

Klaaste: It was very difficult. In Percy Qoboza’s time, it wasn’t so bad because the lines were easily drawn between the people and "the system", as we called it. You were on one side or the other - you were either a sell-out, or in the movement.

The situation began to change in the eighties because political divisions amongst black people began to emerge. We began talking about the BC, the ANC and the PAC, and journalists began to have serious problems. The first necklacing occurred in 1984 when a woman was mistakenly necklaced supposedly because she was a sell-out. It became a matter of 'you should not belong to certain political organisations.' If you were a Charterist you could be killed, and if you were not you could still be killed. I was lucky; I’d moved up in my career by then. The journalists doing the reporting really suffered. They were attacked when covering meetings.

Could you clarify the initial controversy surrounding the question of Nation Building? Was it misunderstood by politicians and the government?

Klaaste: During Joe Latakgomo’s editorship, Sowetan was boycotted because people were saying we were pro-PAC and BC. So Joe Latakgomo, Joe Tlholoe, Thami Mazwai and myself, all PAC guys really, asked ourselves what we should do. Do we support the ANC, do we support the PAC, or do we start something new? We decided to do nothing. We just carried on and carried the burden of having to be branded PAC.

Then when I became editor, a number of things struck me. I said we must try to start this new thinking - Nation Building - to unify all these organisations. I’ve never been able to understand why the PAC moved away from the ANC. Everybody always talked about unity, but it never seemed to work.

I decided, in 1988, to bring all these people together through Nation Building. You could say it was a new ideology. We had to recognize that blacks were destroyed by apartheid and they had to empower themselves.

The dilemma was that blacks lacked the resources. Where are the resources? They are with white people. So you have two choices. You are either going to take those resources by force, or you’re going to ask for them. So I decided we must get other South Africans involved, and that’s where I got into trouble. The BC guys said I was selling out. It was bad; white people thought I was saying the struggle should end.

I got a lot of support from white business because it sounded like good stuff. I was a good black man. The trouble was, this became quite a big thing, and some of the political organisations got angry because they wanted to monopolise the whole thing.

But it was my thinking; the Sowetan’s thinking. And that independence caused me many problems.

While formulating the Nation Building idea, you were arrested. Do you think the government misunderstood the concept?

Klaaste: Well, they thought it was Black Consciousness. It is, in a way. I think the Black Consciousness people were right, except they backed themselves into a corner with the concept of Black Power. Black Power is the opposite of White Power, and then the whites will kill you. But ultimately you’re going to get white and black together in some fashion.

Look at what is happening to the National Sorghum Breweries. Black guys do not know how to operate efficiently. We’re messing up, we’re fighting each other. Our only saving grace will be for us to get power: not just political power but economic power, intellectual power, spiritual power, and all that shit - to be confident people so we can meet these guys equally.

The Vision 2000 placard promotes the idea of complete ownership of Sowetan by blacks. What are the developments in that regard?

Klaaste: It’s not easy. Firstly, we had to get it away from The Argus: a white-owned company with white share-holders. Some people say "give the paper to the people", but the people have got no money, no resources whatsoever.

So you have to look around for somebody who has got the money. And that was two black businessmen, with the help of some white people. It is not a completely black-owned thing, because Dr Motlana and the rest are capitalists who are also enriching themselves. Now at least the Sowetan is owned partly by black people. It’s got shares in the black community, it is moving towards that.

The ideal would be for the people to own the newspaper, but that’s just an old-fashioned idea. The people can`t own a damn thing. Even in the socialist dream, you say the people own this bloody thing and that’s communism. It’s not true; the party owns it all.

We all talk about egalitarianism, but we’re not all equal. Dr Motlana and co. are even getting attacked by the government. They say it’s not black empowerment; it’s empowerment of a few blacks, and some whites. But ask yourself seriously: who the hell will do it? Some say we need to get this newspaper bought by black Americans. They are the worst capitalists. They’d come and run the damn thing as their own, not for the people.

Are you saying you don’t foresee black people having complete ownership of the press, in the near future?

Klaaste: In the end, we must have it. Black people are in the majority and will eventually have to own the businesses. Not just the press, everything, including the stock exchange.

Is total editorial autonomy possible?

Klaaste: There is no total autonomy unless you own the paper yourself. What happens in the classical sense, is that publishers like O’Reilly buy newspapers, then appoint people who will run them. You appoint someone who agrees with your views. You’re not going to appoint a Marxist, or a guy from China, but rather a capitalist who’ll make more money. That’s how you appoint editors.

The trouble with autonomy starts when the paper gets into trouble. If the paper makes money, they’re happy, they leave it alone. When you get into trouble with circulation and advertising, they come in and tell you how to run the bloody thing. You’ll never become independent. You will always have some guy behind you, even if it’s a trust.

Guys like Motlana who own this newspaper are itching to interfere, because black guys also like interfering in things. Thing is, we’re making a lot of money, so they can’t complain.

Motlana and others are businessmen. Their businesses also go through rough patches. We report about it, he gets angry, he calls me. Of course, he’s the boss, so I say: "Doc I`ll look into it." He doesn’t understand that if I go to a reporter and say: "don’t write about the boss," the more he is going to write about the boss. That’s what reporters are like. I know, I was a reporter.

What is your opinion on the language issue, seeing that most of our people are illiterate. Shouldn’t we write in our indigenous languages?

Klaaste: We must write straight-forward, simple English. People will understand and read it. For a commercial newspaper you want to increase your sales and make money. In urban areas there are not too many people who are going to buy your paper if you write in Zulu or Sesotho. This is a business, the more you make profits the better. This country is becoming more urbanised, so you have to use a medium which is accessible to most people.

What are Sowetan’s unique qualities which make it such a force in the market?

Klaaste: Its history, I think. Sowetan started in 1932, so we have pretty solid roots. Its people in those years shared the experience of black people, and made the paper part of the black experience. Its predecessor was World, which was big stuff. But the title was more important than the paper, because it captured the joys of the black experience.

That’s a major thing about the Sowetan. We are black people, writing for black people. When editing the paper I take off my editor’s hat. I want to respond like a black man. I write about the things which eat me, so that the person on the street can identify with the paper.

I know: I grew up in the township; my families are buried there; I was married there; my brothers were killed there. You can’t have an Afrikaner writing about blacks because people won’t recognise the vibe which is a black thing.

The main target market of Sowetan is black. In the near future, do you see any change to accommodate the white segment?

Klaaste: I do not think so. It doesn’t make sense business-wise. You must make the paper so interesting that even white people want to buy it. But we are serving the needs of the majority of the people of this country and that majority is not going to become a minority, so it would be silly to try to become black and white at the same time. The Rand Daily Mail and other newspapers tried to do that. If you’ve a market, stick to that market and exploit it.

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