Famous in the townships; invisible in the suburbs

Bizcommunity: So why are you so under the radar in media circles, TK?
TK: Lord have mercy. How do I answer that? The thing is I've always thought of the work we do as journalists as more important than the individuals. So if we can commit ourselves to making the product much better, make it connect with the reader we are targeting - to me that is critical. Once I'm one with the audience, once I'm able to deliver what they want, there's value for the advertisers. I'd rather spend more time perfecting what we do than anything else. Let the work speak for itself.

click to enlarge

Biz: But the Daily Sun is the biggest paper in the country (with an average 430 000 daily sales). That makes it very influential.
TK: In some circles I may be invisible but if I were to take you to a mall like Eastgate [in Johannesburg]or Gateway [in Durban], for instance, it's a different ball game. Sometimes I feel like a rock star and I'm just trying to blend in... You're sitting in a restaurant and somebody suddenly comes up to you and says: "I think I know you. You're TK." The people who connect with the Daily Sun are looking for me when they phone the paper.

Biz: That's interesting. That sense of ownership from readers tends to come with regional newspapers, not the big national papers.
TK: We have offices in Cape Town, KZN, the Eastern Cape and Bloemfontein so people phone (from all around the country) to say they have stories for us or there is something they want us to expose. I can say: "Well, you can phone the Bloemfontein office," and they say: "No, we want to speak to you first." You know, sometimes it's scary but it also gives one great joy, knowing that what we do sitting here from morning till evening has -how the politicians would say - "mobilised" people. They know where to go; they know who to call. It's not bottled up in a little corner, feeling neglected and ignored.

Biz: Talking of politicians, what's your view on the ANC pushing for a media appeals tribunal and the Protection of Information Bill? President Jacob Zuma says the media does not "adequately" reflect the lives of all South Africans, especially the poor. But the Daily Sun has 4.6 million readers, according to AMPS, and they are working class and poor people.
TK: Before I get into detail, I think a critical thing is that the ANC and the media are speaking past each other [on this]. There hasn't been a sober debate where we properly grill the ANC, where we can make them see apples for what they are - and not lemons. When the ANC makes such wild claims - that the newspapers only serve the elite - then they must look at the Daily Sun.

We have written about people and helped them solve their problems where the very government officials didn't even know those people existed. The voice of the people is much louder in the Daily Sun while other people engage in mental gymnastics and parliamentary politics. The real politics of the Daily Sun - where the proverbial rubber hits the road - is where there are issues of service delivery. Before it became fashionable for people to talk about service delivery, we were doing it five or six years ago.

We even had a thing call "Hall of Shame" so if the ANC turns around and makes these silly claims, then it can only means that they don't read.

Biz: I suspect that Zuma is actually meaning the broadsheets but that's a bit insulting, isn't it, to the tabloids? It's like you don't exist? When the president has his editors' breakfasts, do you get invited?
TK: I do get invited. Look, we can sit and engage in all sorts of high-minded mouthings but, for me, there's real work to be done. The ANC should be concerning itself with - number one - how it should deal with corruption. It should be concerning itself with how to speed up delivery when it can see that people are living in "Hellville", if I could call it that. The [2010 FIFA] World Cup has proven to us that speed can be applied and we can get a perfect product. Then they [the ANC] would not have to worry about trying to beat us [the media] to order... Yes, the [press] ombudsman needs strengthening but we do not want any parliamentary body telling us what to do and passing judgment on us.

Biz: Is it hard to gauge the pulse of your readers because you have so many? For instance, I noticed that there was a shift in how you guys covered the public-sector strike. At a certain point you moved from sympathy for the strikers to sympathy for the ordinary people inconvenienced by the strike?
TK: It is extremely critical for us to ask: "What is the mood of the people?" With the strike, people were supportive but when their relatives were affected, their kids could not go to school, when parents had to make alternative arrangements for their children, people said: "Hang on a minute, when you have issues with government, it doesn't mean our lives have to stop. Yes, we want you to get better pay but not at our expense, especially not at our children's expense and that of our loved ones in hospitals" ...So what we did was not only follow the mood of the angry workers but also look at the communities that were affected by the strike action.

click to enlarge

Biz: Towards the end of the FIFA World Cup in July, we had that xenophobia scare and you guys actively campaigned against possible xenophobic attacks. Do you see the Daily Sun as having an educational role? I seem to recall the paper got roasted a while go for calling immigrants "aliens".
TK: You know, "aliens" was short, sharp and more convenient for posters but we walked away from it. But even then we, as the Daily Sun, had been saying [before the xenophobic riots of 2008] that something was going to go wrong. We were ringing the alarm and everybody ignored it... and then we were vilified for using the word 'aliens".

What we did this time around was talk to different communities, especially where xenophobia is strong. People said: "We do not want xenophobic violence but our situation is still not changed." So we asked the readers: "If you attempt this [violence], do you think things are going to change?" and they said: "No, nothing's going to change."

How do you tell the person at the bottom, who's scrambling for bread crumbs, that by killing they won't have more bread? You actually need to get them to ask themselves that questions and engage with themselves... We tried to be very sober about it...

Biz: Which is not consistent with the general image of sensational tabloids but then what about the witchcraft stories that you guys carry? Sometimes I wonder if it was a slow news day and you massaged a story into something more sensational. I recall reading a story about a little statue in someone's bird bath that people thought had evil powers.
TK: The question one always asks is: "Who am I to pass judgment on someone who believes there is a Virgin Mary somewhere that is weeping?" And when these weird and wonderful stories land on my desk, do I sit in judgment of these beliefs? Because there are people who say: "I will not blame God for my misfortune because my God doesn't punish me. Surely, there is evil here. There is witchcraft that has happened. I cannot blame God."

Biz: To my white middle-class mind, I wonder if carrying witchcraft stories is one short step towards someone accusing a woman of being a witch and killing her because of jealously - maybe she owns a successful spaza shop, for instance. These killing do happen in South Africa. Or isn't it a step towards xenophobic violence because you can demonise someone who's different from you?
TK: Here's the thing. The more we have learned to write these stories, the more questions we are able to ask. So someone might say to us: "We do believe so-and-so is a witch" and we are able to say: "No, she's not"... but look at how we write these stories.

We don't write them in a manner that encourages [finger-pointing]. We don't report "TK practices witchcraft" but rather focus on the person who says: "I have had experiences with a three-legged Tokoloshe or I'm not able to sleep or I've lost three jobs in the past four months and am desperate for help." Then some inyanga will appear and does what they are able to do and then the person says: "Thank you, I'm able to sleep or I have found a job." When people are directly accused of witchcraft, we stay completely away because we know the dangers of that. We don't go sniffing out witches.

Biz: So what's it like working with the legendary Deon du Plessis (who started the Daily Sun in 2002 for Media24)? Some people are scared of him. I'm a bit scared of him.
TK: Maybe it's the Zulu genes - the Mzilikazi genes - because the Khumalos comes from Nongoma towards Stanger KwaNongoma and some areas towards Stanger. That's where Mzilikazi comes from and he was a warrior. Maybe the warrior genes refuse me permission to be scared. But he's a fantastic news man. He has an eye for detail and he demands perfection. Maybe it's because he pushes people towards perfection that some say he is difficult to deal with but show me a news man who's not passionate. Creative people are very passionate...

Working with him, you get a deep sense of why he chose to start a product like the Daily Sun - he has proven one thing: that news is not something that is sacred. Deon is challenging as he doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Biz: You and Deon are very much a partnership, aren't you?
TK: Ja, we work very closely. We're like twins. We walk [in] lockstep.

Biz: What an image...
TK (laughing): A Zulu and a Boer taking over the world. Like Pinky and the Brain taking over the world. Ja, I'm one of the stoep troep - the people who were interviewed on Deon's stoep [porch] in Houghton [in Johannesburg when he started the Daily Sun].

For more:

• Daily Sun: blog of Daily Sun publisher Deon du Plessis
  
• Bizcommunity: isiZulu tabloid papers highlight gap in the market

Corrected at 4.32pm at 15 September 2010.