Careers & Tenders
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/ 6 August 2010

25 years of the Mail — in brief

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  • 1985: The Weekly Mail is founded by a group of journalists retrenched from the closed-down Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Express. Its first editors are Anton Harber and Irwin Manoim, though early on the paper is run by an “editorial collective”. A State of Emergency is declared by the apartheid government weeks after the paper is launched. It includes restrictions on press reporting of “unrest”.

  • 1988: Having battled the Emergency regulations in various ways, the paper is warned and then closed for a month by the minister of information.

  • 1990: Nelson Mandela is released from prison. His first press interview is given to The Weekly Mail. Also in 1990, the paper attempts to ‘go daily”, but The Daily Mail lasts mere months.

  • 1991: The paper incorporates The Guardian Weekly, beginning a long relationship with The Guardian, one of Britian’s leading newspapers. Within two years the two publications will be fully integrated, and over the next few years the Scott Trust, owner of The Guardian, will become the majority shareholder in the company that publishes the Mail.

  • 1995: The paper becomes the Mail & Guardian. Also in 1995, the Electronic Mail & Guardian or eM&G, South Africa’s first news website, is launched.

  • 1997: Phillip van Niekerk becomes editor. Friday is launched as a pull-out arts section

  • 2000: Howard Barrell becomes editor.

  • 2002: Mondli Makhanya becomes editor. Zimbabwean newspaperman Trevor Ncube buys a majority share in the company that publishes the M&G.

  • 2004: Ferial Haffajee becomes editor.

  • 2008: The M&G takes full control of its website, Mail & Guardian Online.

  • 2009: Nic Dawes becomes editor.
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