At the Mondi Shanduka Awards, City Press Editor-in-Chief, Mathatha Tsedu was honoured with the 2007 Lifetime Achiever Award. For almost three decades, Mathatha has been firmly entrenched in newsrooms, living and breathing newsprint.
Guy Berger, Convenor of Judges, Mondi Shanduka Awards says “Tsedu is an editor whose paper still reports on rural communities' news, helping to keep the focus on issues of grassroots development often overlooked by the mainstream media.
"Much awarded, Mathatha has received the Nieman Fellowship, the Nat Nakasa Award and a Reuters Fellowship. These prestigious awards recognise his integrity, commitment and endeavour - the judges proudly lauded him the Mondi Shanduka Lifetime Achiever Award.”
It was the Sunday Post which gave him his first real break in the late ‘70's. “After my first ever story was published I realised that this was my lifetime calling and determined to constantly seek to improve my offerings from then on,” says Tsedu.
Commenting on today's newsrooms, Mathatha says the standard of journalism is not necessarily lower but stories differ from 30 years ago. “Although many skilled journalists abandoned the less-experienced newsrooms, South Africa is being informed daily.”
In 1992 he ventured into the ‘big city' as The Sowetan's Investigations Editor and by the time of South Africa's first democratic elections he had been appointed Political Editor. A Nieman Fellowship Award in 1996 was followed by stints at Independent Newspapers' various publications, SABC and as Editor at the Sunday Times before joining RCP Media.
Tsedu has an Honours Degree in Journalism Studies from the University of Wits and completed journalism courses in South Africa, Kenya, United Kingdom, Belgium, Zimbabwe and Harvard University in the USA.
More about Mthatha Tsedu He is currently Chairperson of the African Editors Forum (TAEF) and council member of the South African Editors Forum (SANEF). He was awarded the prestigious Nieman Fellowship in 1996/97 and spent 10 months at Harvard University studying Leadership, Management, Journalism Ethics and General Economics. Tsedu has been awarded the Nat Nakasa Award for Courageous Journalism. He is also a member of the MultiChoice Foundation Advisory Board, freelancer for the BBC, a regular contributor to The World Paper based in Boston and published as a supplement to over 50 newspapers around the world. Mathatha also served as a member of the Task Group on Government Communications appointed by the then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. Comtask's recommendations led to the demise of SADC and the creation of GCIS.
Visit our PRESS OFFICE: City Press is by far the biggest Sunday newspaper in the black market with more than 2,3 million readers (AMPS2007RA). The newspaper is sold countrywide, and also in Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland. It is printed in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.- more....
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Guy Berger, Convenor of Judges, Mondi Shanduka Awards says “Tsedu is an editor whose paper still reports on rural communities' news, helping to keep the focus on issues of grassroots development often overlooked by the mainstream media. 
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