"Although I had already decided about taking journalism as a subject, when I got to Rhodes University for the pre-term week-long induction I went to the department's introductory lecture. The great Don Pinnock – whose wit and uncompromising view of the state of South Africa in the late 80s I would later get to know much better – jumped up onto the lecture hall desk, and put on a Mao cap and pronounced: "One in every five of you is a police spy. I might was well nail my colours to the mast." It struck me as just the kind of irreverent way of looking at the world that I wanted to be around. Interesting AND funny. That's what education should be all about.

 

As a teenager I had become friendly with the legendary John Brett Cohen, a Jewish South African photojournalist who heeded the call and served in Israel's army during the numerous conflicts in the 1960s. He was my best friend's father's best friend. His unflinching, honest, and insightful way of seeing life in its glory and tragedy was what inspired me to be a journalist. He was the first of many mentors who inspired me. It was the peak of the Total Onslaught years when I matriculated and ostensibly chose a career. I wanted to do something to change my country and journalism – with all its honesty, and bravery, and strange dusty glamour – seemed like the best use of my limited skills (I was good at English at school). It was the best decision I could have made. 

 

The journalism department was a great place to come of age in the years when Apartheid's false science and destructive separatism was being pulled down. We were young and idealistic. We wanted to change the world. And drink cheaply at the Vic afterwards. There were old warriors turned lecturers who told us what they had done in the war. But there was also a strong vein of media theory being instilled in us about the importance of being a journalist first, an activist second. Like that is ever really possible in the real world. Activism journalism was frowned on as a failed form of the pureness of journalism itself. I look back at that perhaps naive attempt at trying to keep intellectual soldiers from fighting their cause – THE cause, lets be honest, for human rights, dignify, democracy and cheap beer – from infiltrating their objective job as a journalist. 

 

I believe strongly in the power of telling the truth and its impact on the world (as we can see even more starkly in this terrible post-truth age). Journalism is the living embodiment of the dictum my parents told me my whole childhood: "always tell the truth, no matter what". 

Being a journalist is also an incredibly good set of life skills – and work experience. No matter the obstacles, the changing nature of a story, or any other challenges, a reporter's job is to get the story. Whatever the story evolves into. Usually under enormous pressure, with sources who won't answer your call or people who refuse to give you comment, or any number of other hinderances, you still have to get the job done. The world needs more of "just get the job done" attitude, especially South Africa as we clean up from the Presidunce Jacob Zuma state capture years.

 

"Don't be afraid of white space," our lecturer Kerry Swift told us in design class in our final year. For most of my career I have adhered faithfully to Kerry's immortal advice, because journalists would rather cram a page with more copy than "waste" it on white space or photographs. When I was at the Mail & Guardian – where I was both the technology and sports editor, an incongruent combination I know – it was advice that was utterly apt. The tabloid format required a design nous to make it more than the tabloid shape it used. Irwin Manoim is both a design and journalism genius, and was decades ahead of the curve at converting a high-minded broadsheet into the more economic and compact tabloid format – something all of London's high-end papers have since done.

A few years ago I realised that three of us from those great years when Kerry lectured at Rhodes had, in fact, become magazine editors: Jason Brown at Men's Health, Hagen Engler at FHM and me at Stuff.

 

The best film maker I met at Rhodes was the late Leigh Tanchel. He went to a shebeen one Saturday night and came back with images that were worthwhile of being printed in any major news publication. Leigh oozed talent, and after being a writer and photographer, found his niche in life as a film maker. He was a gifted assistant director when cancer, which he had battled with since he was 22, took him. Leigh epitomised those wild early 90s years."