The Press Council of South Africa is deeply saddened at the passing on Sunday, 22 February, of one of South Africa’s media legends, Joe Latakgomo, who served as our Public Advocate from 2018 to 2020.

Latakgomo joined us after more than 50 years of active service in the media, reaching the heights of founding editor of Sowetan in 1981. Before that, he was a stalwart at The World and Weekend World, which were banned by the apartheid regime, and was Assistant Editor at the Post and Sunday Post.

After his editorship at Sowetan, he was Assistant Editor of The Star and Assistant Editor of the Argus Africa News Service. He went on to be the Public Editor of Avusa (Times Media).

Writing in October 2020, upon the 43rd anniversary of Black Wednesday, The Star sub-editor Nhlanhla Mbatha recalled how Latakgomo’s immediate boss at The World, Percy Qoboza, ‘was detained in a world headline-grabbing spectacle in the newspaper’s office (on 19 October 1977) … and had become a symbol of press freedom’. Latakgomo effectively had to take over.

Mbatha vaunted: ‘In yesteryear politics, Nelson Mandela was the face of the ANC from the prison walls while Oliver Tambo was keeping the fires burning in exile. I draw parallels and dare say that if Qoboza was the Mandela of the press, Latakgomo must have been the Tambo of the Fourth Estate.’

Press Council member and one of the greatest legends in South Africa media himself, Joe Thloloe, also sees Latakgomo as a hero for his steadfast journalism under the most violent years of apartheid. Thloloe calls him, ‘a journalist’s journalist’.

‘He would go out to do the reporting, come back to the office, pick up the dummy pages, design and lay them out for the printer.

‘But what is never brought out to the fore is that he was running The World as Editor when Soweto drew the line in the sand in 1976. Percy, who got the honours for this, was out of the country on a Nieman Fellowship that year. Joe shepherded the young Willie Bokabas and the Sam Nzimas as they recorded the story of 1976.

‘Joe wasn’t imprisoned like the rest of us that year, but South Africa carries the imprint of his foot. May his soul rest in peace and condolences to all his family and friends.’

Latakgomo had a campaigning and colourful personality. In his submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, he told of a form of harassment of the press that was quite common under apartheid.

‘Sometimes we got telephone calls, people telling us what was happening. But we knew our telephones were being bugged. If we got a call like that and published it, it could be somebody sitting in security headquarters giving the impression he was from Tanzania or Lusaka, giving you disinformation and you would end up publishing what would eventually be untrue information and they would prove that you published false information and therefore discredit you forever.

‘So, we were very careful about that. Therefore, it inhibited us in terms of what we could publish. Of course, there was also the danger that once somebody called you, I don’t know the number of times that, while you were talking to a contact, somebody would interrupt and in a very famous kind of way would say: “Julle praat maar kak, man.” ‘

The panel asked, ‘This was the cops listening in?’

Latakgomo replied, ‘Yes. He would lose it and probably suddenly regret having done this. I don’t know how many people have had that kind of experience, and I bet you it will be hundreds of people. It was either arrogance about it or they were particularly dumb.’

He spent much time on the continent, working for the Argus Africa News Service, and also worked as a journalist in the UK, Canada, Japan and Hungary. He was awarded the prestigious Nieman Fellowship to attend Harvard University in the United States in 1991.

Many remember Latakgomo for his enthusiastic love of football, too. He was inducted into the SAB Sports Journalists Hall of Fame in 2009 and awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the South African Football Association in 2011. His book, Mzansi Magic, Struggle, Betrayal & Glory: The Story of South African Soccer, was published in 2010, and he also wrote the text for global icon Peter Magubane’s photographic commemoration, June 16, Never, Never Again, in 1996.

Khanyi Ndaweni, Case Manager at the Office of the Press Council, worked closely with Latakgomo. She says ‘he stood out as a kind and caring colleague who treated everyone with respect and warmth, and will be greatly missed’.

Executive Director of the Press Council Phathiswa Magopeni expressed our sadness, saying, ‘We mourn the passing of Joe Latakgomo, whose voice as Public Advocate of the Press Council of South Africa carried both courage and conscience’.

‘He understood that robust, independent media accountability is the lifeblood of democracy.

‘We honour and celebrate his contribution to strengthening the credibility, integrity, and public trust in our media accountability and oversight system.’

Current Public Advocate Thabo Leshilo, who was in the media generation that followed that of Latakgomo and Thloloe, sees Latakgomo as a mentor to many: ‘Bra Joe’s mastery of this craft and his fearless in speaking truth to the power of the apartheid regime played an important part in inspiring some of us to joint this noble craft.’

It matters to record Latakgomo’s own words from a speech he presented at a Media Freedom Day event in 2010, which are as fresh now as when he first spoke them.

‘The responsibility of the media is to report what citizens or government, or both may not want to hear, as well as what they do want to hear. Newspapers dare not sanitise the news and thereby play God … and exclude news that may be perceived to be detrimental to the government or the ruling party.

‘No doubt, we sometimes see our private picture of the world as the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For this reason, we want to demand everyone to see the world the way we see it.

‘Freedom of the media means for us to say what we want to say and what we want to believe. This is enshrined in the Constitution.’

The Press Council extends its most compassionate condolences to his wife, Angie, and the entire Latakgomo family, and to Bra Joe’s friends and former colleagues. He will never be forgotten.

Statement issued by:

The Press Council Executive Director Phathiswa Magopeni

PICTURE: Courtesy Times Live.