The Mail & Guardian Online on Saturday confirmed that former Sunday Times editor Mathatha Tsedu has accepted the editorship of the weekly City Press newspaper.
On Friday the M&G Online reported that Tsedu had denied a report in ThisDay newspaper that he would be the next editor of City Press.
”I’ve not been told I’ve been appointed. I’ve not signed anything,” Tsedu had said.
On Saturday, however, Tsedu confirmed his appointment, saying he will start on Monday February 9.
Tsedu was dismissed from the Sunday Times after being accused of underperformance.
He was sacked after one of his political reporters, Ranjeni Munusamy, leaked a report he had refused to publish — regarding National Prosecutions Authority chief Bulelani Ngcuka allegedly having been an apartheid spy — to City Press.
The report led to the establishment of the Hefer commission, which investigated the spy claims and found that Ngcuka had not been an apartheid spy.
The report and its subsequent debunking before the Hefer commission cost the then City Press editor, Vusi Mona, his job.
In November last year, M&G Online columnist Guy Berger wrote how Johncom CEO Connie Molusi had sung Tsedu’s praises when he hired him as the first African editor of the Sunday Times.
”Mathatha Tsedu is one of South Africa’s most respected and accomplished journalists,” Molusi had said.
”It is true that some senior Sunday Times staff (of white, coloured and Indian backgrounds) turned against Tsedu. Not because of simple racial scripts, but because they disagreed with particularities of his vision and disliked his style and pace. Also counting against him was his status as an outsider in a tightly knit newsroom with strong internal apprenticeship traditions,” Berger wrote.
”In hindsight, Johncom management should probably have foreseen the challenges. Everyone knew that Tsedu had stood for different, blacker and more Africa-oriented paper,” Berger added.
When asked if he has any specific plans for the future of City Press — especially after the Hefer commission — Tsedu told the M&G Online: ”Not really. The paper has a good tradition. It has an image problem right now, which will be a big challenge.”
”I will still discuss my plans with the people,” he added. ”I am not sitting here with a bag of tricks.”