History
The Rand Daily Mail was founded in 1902 by businessman Harry Cohen and managed by editor Edgar Wallace. [2] [3] [4] : 41 Cohen purchased the linotype machines and printing presses for the newspaper from Emmanuel Mendelssohn, equipment from the defunct The Standard and Diggers' News. [5] : 313 Extravagant operational expenses by Wallace almost bankrupted the newspaper and Cohen had to step in to limited spending. [5] : 314 It was bought by mining magnate Abe Bailey in 1905 after the death of Harry Cohen, after the intervention of Lord Milner who feared it would be purchased by Boer nationalists, and Bailey formed a company called the Rand Daily Mails Ltd. [4] : 41 [5] : 314 [6] Bailey leased the paper out to three people, George H. Kingswell, who became the general manager, Ralph Ward Jackson its editor and A. V. Lindbergh its distributor as CNA chairman. [4] : 41 The three men would go on to form The Sunday Times which worked in conjunction with the paper. [4] : 42 By 1910, the company help form the Reuters branch called the Reuters South African Press Agency. [4] : 43
By May 1915, Rand Daily Mails Ltd (RDM) absorbed the Transvaal Leader when the Cape Times Ltd sold it for shares in the RDM and became the only morning newspaper in Johannesburg but that shareholding was soon bought out by Abe Bailey. [4] : 42 In 1920, an agreement was reached by the Argus Group, Rand Daily Mails Ltd and Sunday Times not to publish papers that competed with the three companies and this agreement lasted until 1968. [4] : 43 In 1929, the RDM and Argus Group bought out the Pretoria News though the Argus Group held the majority shareholding. [4] : 43
In 1934 I.W. Schlesinger's created competition when he formed the Sunday Express and then in 1937, the Daily Express. [5] : 318 In an attempt to control the newspaper market, the RDM, Sunday Times and Argus group bought out Schlesinger's newspaper interests in 1939, closing down the Daily Tribune (Durban), Daily Express (Johannesburg) and Sunday Tribune (Durban) but kept the Sunday Express (Johannesburg). [4] : 44
In 1955 the Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Times formed a single company called the South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN), the second largest newspaper group at the time. [4] : 42
During the apartheid years, journalists like Benjamin Pogrund reported on political and economic issues affecting black South Africans about which whites were largely ignorant. Pogrund, for example, reported on the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. In 1965 Pogrund wrote in the paper about prison conditions, based on the evidence of prisoners including Harold Strachan. [7] Strachan was sent to prison for a year and a half as a result. [8]
On 3 November 1978 Rand Daily Mail journalists Mervyn Rees and Chris Day reported on the use of public funds since 1973 to set up a disinformation network in South Africa and abroad. The money was used in attempts to buy The Washington Star , and to set up The Citizen as a government-controlled counter to The Rand Daily Mail. [9]
Hounded by the state, the paper's board decided to moderate its content for the sake of attracting more affluent white readers. This strategy led to financial losses and the newspaper was forced to close in 1985, eighty-three years after it was founded. [1]
After its closure, the black newspaper The Sowetan described The Rand Daily Mail as the first white newspaper to regard blacks as human beings. Yet for most of the apartheid period (1948–1990) the paper suffered from poor management, government infiltration, and state censorship. The management often tried to replace more liberal editors with conservative ones.
After the closure of The Rand Daily Mail, some of its journalists (like Anton Harber and Irwin Manoim) pooled their severance pay to start the Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian ), which carried on the anti-apartheid stance of its predecessor.
The Mail & Guardian, formerly the Weekly Mail, is a South African weekly newspaper and website, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa. It focuses on political analysis, investigative reporting, Southern African news, local arts, music and popular culture. It is considered a newspaper of record for South Africa.
The Western Mail is a daily newspaper published by Media Wales Ltd in Cardiff, Wales owned by the UK's largest newspaper company, Reach plc. The Sunday edition of the newspaper is published under the title Wales on Sunday.
Allister Haddon Sparks was a South African writer, journalist, and political commentator. He was the editor of The Rand Daily Mail when it broke Muldergate, the story of how the apartheid government secretly funded information projects.
The Sunday Times is South Africa's biggest Sunday newspaper. Established in 1906, the Sunday Times is distributed all over South Africa and in neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, Botswana, and Eswatini.
Benjamin Pogrund OIS is a South African-born Israeli author.
Mondli Makhanya is a South African journalist who has been editor-in-chief of City Press since 2016. He was formerly the editor of the Mail & Guardian from 2002 to 2003, the editor of the Sunday Times from 2004 to 2010, and the editor-in-chief at the Times Media Group from 2010 to 2013. He is also a former chairperson of the South African National Editors' Forum. He is well known for his political commentary, currently published in City Press columns.
David Ross St John Beresford was a South African journalist who was a long-time correspondent for The Guardian newspaper. Posted to Belfast at the height of the Troubles, he was the author of Ten Men Dead (1987), a book about the 1981 Irish hunger strike in Maze prison in Northern Ireland, which has been called one of the best books ever written about the Troubles. He was later The Guardian's correspondent in Johannesburg, where he became noted for his coverage of the end of apartheid, breaking the news of some of the most significant events and scandals in the 1980s and '90s. Beresford was among the most prominent figures in South African journalism, and played a significant role in rescuing The Mail & Guardian in the early '90s.
Raymond Louw was a South African journalist, editor, and media commentator in South Africa. He was an editor of the influential Rand Daily Mail and received numerous awards and accolades for his services to journalism and media freedom in South Africa. In 2011, he was named a World Press Freedom Hero by the Vienna-based International Press Institute. The award cited his "commitment to press freedom and his outspoken defence of journalists’ rights".
Bell Dewar was a South African law firm. On 1 February 2013, it merged with Fasken Martineau, an international business law and litigation firm.
Zwelakhe Sisulu was a South African black journalist, editor, and newspaper founder. He was president of the Writers' Association of South Africa, which later became the Black Media Workers Association of South Africa, and he led a year-long strike in 1980 for fair wages for black journalists. Under apartheid, he was imprisoned at least three times for his journalism. After apartheid ended, he became the chief executive officer of the South African Broadcast Corporation.
Ivor Benson was a journalist, right-wing essayist, anti-communist and racist conspiracy theorist. From 1964 to 1966 he was a Rhodesian government official and censor. He fanatically supported apartheid in South Africa. He also wrote frequently about a global Jewish/Communist conspiracy; his main book on the subject, This Worldwide Conspiracy, was supported by the right-wing London Swinton Circle and recommended by the neo-Nazi National Front (UK). Benson blamed the BBC, Wall Street banking interests, the government of the Soviet Union, and the World Council of Churches as drivers of a global conspiracy to wipe out his preferred nationalism.
Stanley Huette "Stan" Uys was a South African journalist.
Olivia Anne Marie Forsyth , agent number RS407 and codename "Lara", is a former spy for the apartheid government in South Africa. Having attained the rank of lieutenant in the Security Branch of the South African Police (SAP), Forsyth defected to the African National Congress (ANC) and was incarcerated at Quatro prison camp in northern Angola. Following her escape, Forsyth spent six months hiding in the British embassy in Luanda.
John Matisonn is a South African political journalist and author. He was one of the founding councillors of South Africa's Independent Broadcasting Authority and from 1986 to 1991 was the South Africa correspondent for National Public Radio in the United States.
Laurence Owen Vine Gandar was a South African journalist and newspaper editor. He is best known as an editor of South African newspaper The Rand Daily Mail.
Anton Harber is a South African journalist. He is executive director of the Campaign for Free Expression, director of the Henry Nxumalo Foundation an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand, and the co-editor or author of five books.
Jonathan Ancer is a South African journalist, author, podcaster and media trainer. He wrote Uncovering Craig Williamson, which was on the longlist for the Alan Paton literary prize. Ancer wrote Betrayal: The Secret Lives of Apartheid Spies which was released in 2019.
Petrus Malan Cillié QC was a South African jurist, Judge President of the Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa and Judge op Appeal.
South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN) was an English language South African newspaper group formed in 1995. Its three important newspapers were the Rand Daily Mail, Sunday Times and Sunday Express. It was at one time the second largest newspaper group in the country.
