Up close with John Perlman

It is somehow difficult to understand how such an unassuming guy, in black jeans and T-shirt, could have caused such a fuss when he announced that he was quitting his job.

But then again, we are talking about John Perlman, who has made a living and a reputation by allowing people to fuss and argue about things in public. And he is quitting the one public corporation everyone has a view on — the SABC.

As you read this — unless you read this edition at the crack of dawn — Perlman would have presented his last show on SAfm’s AM Live.

And so an era in South African radio journalism has passed.

Perlman spent nine years hosting the breakfast current affairs show and it has been four years since listeners first heard his signature introduction — a question and then his voice saying: ‘this is the After Eight Debate”.

Perlman says he is not sure about what he is going to do next, and we will have to wait at least two months before he makes up his mind about whether he starts his own venture or becomes ‘a media wage slave again”. What is certain is that he will be spending some time in the Drakensberg, Pilanesberg and the Kruger National Park and that he will not have to wake up pre-dawn every weekday which, incidentally, he says he did not mind.

‘The thing I really minded was leaving early the night before. I am looking forward to a richer time with friends and family … For a while I will probably wake up at 4am, but I will go to sleep again.”

The producers working the morning shift with him, Mmanaledi Mataboge, Phuti Mosomane, Lebo Monnamogolo and Mark Preller — all of whom, he says, are the reason for the success of the show — will now have to wait and see who the bosses at Auckland Park announce as their new colleague.

It means that just when they thought they had come to terms with Perlman’s occasional outbursts of pique, they must learn the ways of a new person.

On the morning of the interview, it appears Perlman is in one of his better moods, given his admission that he is not always easy to work with. He is the picture of calm, the meanderings of some callers not withstanding. The worst thing he does is make faces and occasionally throw his hands up in despair as the person interviewed takes their time making their point. Maybe it is the presence of his sister, Harriet Perlman, who is visiting the studio to witness one of her brother’s last gigs, that is to be thanked for the good manners.

Perlman’s patience is interspersed with bouts of dry humour, as when the producers tell him that they have Professor Sipho Seepe and Professor Adam Habib on the line. ‘Can I also call myself professor? I feel left out,” he quips.

Speculation about the reasons for his leaving cannot be avoided; his resignation comes a few months after he contradicted SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago’s assertion that there was no political interference in the choice of political commentators who are allowed to speak on the SABC — during a live broadcast.

‘I was doing my job as I understood it in terms of the SABC editorial charter,” he says between sips of tea at Radio Park after the show. Other than that, he is as reticent as ever to discuss the reasons for his departure from the broadcaster, saying merely, ‘The reasons are complicated.”

And the allegations of political interference?

‘My two-and-a-half hours of testimony on the issue of political abuse at the national broadcaster [given] at the Sisulu Commission are a matter of public record,” he says.

Having worked for other media outlets, such as The Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian), The Sunday Independent and occasionally as a soccer commentator for TV, Perlman might have known that one day he would have to leave.

‘I knew it wouldn’t be forever. But I never got to terms with what it would mean to come to the end. The biggest loss for me is doing the After Eight Debate. I loved the unpredictability. It was a real gift given to me.”

The news of his leaving has shown how intimate a medium radio is. During almost every show since the announcement, a listener calls in and bemoans his departure and talks about how he has touched their lives.

In one case, a woman stopped just short of saying that Perlman had helped raise her son.

‘My youngest son who turned 15 last month has grown up with you as a member of our family. We have laughed and giggled together, especially when he was younger, in the car on our way to school for him and work for me. You have cheered us up and enabled us to have strength to continue even on those mornings when we would have really preferred to stay at home.

‘We were somewhat shocked to hear of your resignation. Our hearts are sore. We have loved you all these years and will continue to do so. We do, however, respect and accept your decision.”

There are also those happy to see the back of him. One listener sent in an email in which he was unsparing of Perlman.

‘The resignation of Perlman is a good riddance and a welcome relief. Personally, I could not fathom the reason for the infatuation with his brand of journalism that was nothing short of counter-revolutionary. His shortfall was that he regarded himself (vainly so) as a good journalist and everybody else as an empty vessel desperately waiting to be filled up. He thought he could grow bigger than the SABC at the expense of SABC. I hope the SABC learns from its mistake and spares us these apartheid apologists masquerading as professional journalists.”

Such comments hurt him, he readily admits.

‘Ever since I was young, I have always had this naive belief that I wanted people to like me. The advice I give to young journalists is that they shouldn’t go out there to be liked, but to be respected. So it bothers me when people say I am an apartheid apologist because I am not. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I am human.”

If it is any consolation, recent tributes to him indicate that there were many more listeners who liked him than those who didn’t. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s fond on-air farewell last week is just one example of the regard Perlman has in the public space.

Knowing what he knows now, maybe the next time he is asked to speak to rookie reporters, Perlman will be able to tell them that being liked and being respected need not be mutually exclusive.