South African editor Laurence Gandar was on Wednesday declared a World Press Freedom Hero by the International Press Institute (IPI), and will be honoured at a ceremony in September.
“[Gandar will be] posthumously honoured at the IPI World Congress for his long years of dedication to the press in South Africa and his profoundly transformative effect on the political landscape of the country,” the IPI said in a statement.
“Gandar was editor of the Johannesburg-based Rand Daily Mail from 1957 to 1969, leading the paper at a time when the country it served was going through a sea change.
“Under Gandar’s leadership, the paper became, in the words of his long-time collaborator Benjamin Pogrund, ‘the flag-bearer of liberal opposition to apartheid’ in South Africa.
“He introduced investigative journalism to South Africa, and encouraged new and incisive reporting which investigated the effects of apartheid, including the jailing of black activists, at a time when these issues were largely ignored by the mainstream media.”
Former editor of the Rand Daily Mail and IPI World Press Freedom Hero jury chairperson Raymond Louw, who worked with Gandar, said he was the first editor to turn a major South African newspaper into a crusader for human rights.
“He transformed the opposition press in South Africa, not only into a campaigning force, but into a courageous and determined defender, supporter and promoter of press freedom,” Louw said.
‘The appalling story of apartheid’
IPI director David Dadge said: “While under enormous pressure from the South African government and its security services, Laurence Gandar told the appalling story of the apartheid period in South Africa.”
The organisation said Gandar was regularly in trouble with the authorities for “his dedication to the truth”, and alienated many readers and advertisers as a result of his progressive political editorials and opinion pieces, written under the pseudonym of Owen Vine, his two middle names.
In 1965, as a result of a series of reports on prison conditions by Pogrund, Gandar and Pogrund were tried under the Prisons Act and found guilty.
Pogrund was given a suspended jail sentence, and Gandar was fined. His passport was confiscated, while his paper suffered repeated police raids, the infiltration of police spies into its newsroom, the tapping of telephones, and the arrest and detention of its journalists.
“He had been previously fired by the board of directors of the paper, ostensibly because of plummeting circulation figures, a decision that was reversed when the senior editorial staff threatened a walk-out.”
Gandar is the second South African journalist to be selected as an IPI World Press Freedom Hero. In 2000, black South African newspaper editor Percy Qoboza was honoured with the award. — Sapa