Charles Lee Mathews

Last updated
Charles Lee Mathews
NationalitySouth African
Alma mater Rhodes University
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • Writer
  • Editor
Awards
  • Text 100 Chairman's Award
  • Planet Text Award
  • Financial Mail PRISM award
Website The Writers

Charles Lee Mathews (also known as Charlie Mathews and formerly known as Mandy de Waal) is a South African writer and journalist. [1] [2]

Contents

She is known for her sharp and insightful commentary, and investigative pieces on politics and the media. She has written opinion and feature pieces that interrogate race, power and the media landscape in South Africa — notably her critique of then-Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille’s rhetoric on race in the Western Cape when realistically black people were faced with systematic racism in the province. [3] [4]

Her bylines have appeared in outlets including Rolling Stone , The Guardian (UK) , Daily Maverick , iMaverick, Finweek, Mail & Guardian , City Press , Rapport , Moneyweb, Noseweek , Brainstorm Magazine, ITWeb, GroundUp and MarkLives. [5] She entered news media in 2008 after twenty years as a business consultant and later changed her byline from Mandy de Waal to Charles Lee Mathews, a name she has said honours her father, Charles Wheatley Mathews. [2]

She has been recognized for her reporting on the media landscape and political influence in South Africa. [6] She notably interviewed Atul Gupta in 2011, examining the Gupta family's business and political connections in South Africa, [7] and critically analyzed their New Age newspaper and its ties to President Jacob Zuma, [8] highlighting its substantial advertising revenue from government and state-linked organizations despite its lack of certified circulation figures. [6]

In September 2011, she wrote a widely read tribute to tabloid publisher Deon du Plessis, describing him as a "larger than life" figure in South African journalism and crediting his role in shaping the Daily Sun into the country’s largest-selling daily newspaper. [9] In February 2013, she conducted a widely cited interview with businessman Iqbal Survé for the Daily Maverick shortly after Survé's Sekunjalo Independent Media Consortium announced the R2 billion acquisition of the Independent News & Media South African group, [10] a piece which explored Survé’s assurances of editorial independence following the takeover [11] and which has since been referenced in discussions about media ownership and press freedom in South Africa. [12] [13]

Awards

References

  1. Charlie Mathews on the White boys club article, Thought Leader, retrieved 24 August 2025
  2. 1 2 Journey from Mandy to Charles, The Media Magazine (journal), November 2016
  3. de Waal, Mandy (11 December 2014). "Why Helen Zille's racism rhetoric is wrong". Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
  4. "Why Mandy de Waal's anti-Zille rhetoric is wrong". Mail & Guardian. 18 December 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2025.
  5. "Profile of Mandy de Waal". Bizcommunity. Retrieved 21 August 2025.
  6. 1 2 Plaut, Martin (19 March 2018). "Media Freedom in South Africa". The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs. 107 (2): 151–162. doi:10.1080/00358533.2018.1448341 . Retrieved 25 August 2025.
  7. Q&A: Zuma, business & the universe according to Atul Gupta, Daily Maverick, 10 May 2011. Retrieved 25 August 2025
  8. No news is bad news for the New Age, Daily Maverick, 17 September 2010. Retrieved 26 August 2025
  9. de Waal, Mandy (12 September 2011). "Deon du Plessis: a man truly larger than life goes on the great sabbatical in the sky". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
  10. Magda Wierzycka vs Igbal Surve, Daily Friend, 11 June 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2025
  11. de Waal, Mandy (19 February 2013). "Interview: Iqbal Survé, Indy's new boss and SA's latest media mogul". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
  12. Assessing Sekunjalo's Mpati Commission spin, The Media Online, March 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2025
  13. Igbal Surve: Specialist in media capture and state capture, BizNews, 15 April 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2025