|
For newspaper editor Ferial Haffajee, Johannesburg is a city that takes a lot of beating.
Ferial Haffajee, editor of the Mail & Guardian
FOR journalist Ferial Haffajee, Joburg is her home and will always be. For her, the city has a myriad attractions, but the jacarandas, the Carlton Centre, Zoo Lake and Melville are firm favourites.
Haffajee, 37, is the editor of the Mail & Guardian, the country's premier investigative newspaper. She took up the post in February this year, becoming the first black woman editor of a major newspaper in South Africa.
She started in journalism as a trainee on the paper in 1991, and now, 13 years late, is described by her predecessor, Mondli Makhanya, as "one of the finest minds in journalism".
Growing up in Joburg her family used to drive passed the Zoo Lake swimming pool, but was not allowed entry because of apartheid. Now, of course, she can freely enjoy this wonderful amenity, which she does every week. And the Zoo Lake parklands and nearby Emmarentia Dam are her favourite places to walk.
Haffajee grew up in Bosmont, a former coloured area sandwiched between mine dumps to the west of the city centre. Her family now lives in Mayfair and Fordsburg, on the western edge of the CBD, which she considers to be her "home town". She loves the shops there, which sell delicious goodies to eat.
"With the ending of Ramadan recently there were immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh selling chicken and spices - it was quite special," she says.
Haffajee started her journalistic career on the Weekly Mail, where she spent three years, after which she joined the SABC, working in radio and television. After a spell as senior editor on the Financial Mail, she moved back to the Mail, by then called the Mail & Guardian. Then in February she stepped into the editor's shoes and plans to expand the paper's coverage of Africa, gender issues and women in leadership roles.
In July this year Haffajee was one of nine winners of the Shoprite Checkers/ SABC2 Women of the Year Award, in the Media and Communications category.
She wrote the "Little Black Book", a listing of the country's top black business people, while at the Financial Mail.
Like many Joburgers, Haffajee soaks up the pleasures of Joburg by visiting the malls - Sandton, The Zone and Killarney are her favourites, although the trendy shops of Parkhurst also appear on her list.
Although she hints she may one day consider retiring to Simonstown in the Cape, it's obviously going to have to exert great pressure.
"I love the energy and the changes of Joburg, and, it is where my family is," she says.
Related stories:
|
