Sunday Times (South Africa)

South African weekly newspaper

The Sunday Times is South Africa's biggest Sunday newspaper. Established in 1906, it is distributed throughout South Africa and in neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, Botswana, and Eswatini.

The Sunday Times was first published on 4 February 1906 as a weekly sister publication of the Rand Daily Mail which at the time was "standing alone" against its rival, the Transvaal Leader. Founding editor George Herbert Kingswell introduced the slogan "A Paper for the People". 11,600 copies were printed and soon sold out, forcing the paper to print an additional 5000 copies. By November 1909, the paper sales had risen to 35,000. In 1992, the former columnist Jani Allan sued the British broadcaster Channel 4 for libel over affair allegations involving her and Eugene Terre'Blanche. Allan had interviewed the AWB leader for the Sunday Times. Allan had already settled out of court with the London Evening Standard and Options magazine over similar allegations. The then news editor of the newspaper, the late Marlene Burger and newspaper astrologer Linda Shaw testified against Allan. Before the libel suit, Allan had published articles for the newspaper dismissing the affair allegations. Allan also allowed the newspaper to publish answerphone messages left by Terre'Blanche as well as her threats of taking legal action against Terre'Blanche for nuisance contact. Allan lost the case; the judge ruled that she had not been defamed but did not conclude whether an affair had occurred. The case became notorious for violence and a dirty tricks campaign. Publications such as the Financial Mail and Allan herself speculated that the De Klerk government paid the defence witnesses in an attempt to destabilise the far right in South Africa. Shaw recounted her editor, Ken Owen's reaction to the case: "When I came back from London. Owen stood in the middle of the newsroom and said: 'You have single handedly destroyed the reputation of every journalist in the country and we have become the laughing stock." On 13 November 2005, the Sunday Times broke the story that the African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma was being investigated on rape charges. It was reported that Zuma considered legal action against the publication, although it later emerged that an investigation was underway. On 6 December 2005, official rape charges were filed against Zuma. He would later be acquitted of rape. On 5 November 2007, it was reported that a consortium containing some senior government figures had launched a bid to purchase 100% of Avusa (previously Johncom), the company that owned the Sunday Times. In March 2007, Zuma sued the paper for R6 million over two columns by popular columnist David Bullard. The two columns, Stupidity a mitigating circumstance for Zuma, published on 16 April 2006, and Visit the Zuma website to see what was meant (7 May 2006), were cited by Zuma as defamatory and an "impairment of his dignity". Although David Bullard was found to be operating within the ethical bounds of The Sunday Times regarding the two columns, he would later fall out of favour with editor Mondli Makhanya. On 10 April 2008, Bullard was fired from the Sunday Times after the publication of a column on 6 April 2008 (Uncolonised Africa wouldn't know what it was missing) received a stern protest from several political parties. The editor apologised for the column, saying "by publishing him (Bullard) we were complicit in disseminating his Stone Age philosophies". In September 2008, the Sunday Times was again vigorously attacked for publishing a highly controversial piece, this time in the form of a cartoon by critically acclaimed cartoonist Jonathon Shapiro (Zapiro). The cartoon depicted Jacob Zuma getting ready to rape the Justice System while being assisted by the leaders of various ANC and political factions and parties. Zapiro denied any ambiguity between Jacob Zuma's depiction as a rapist in the cartoon and his earlier rape trial. the Sunday Times and its editor were slated by various ANC officials. A joint press release by the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the ANC Youth League lambasted the Sunday Times editor, describing him as a dictator, and called for his replacement: "We can only hope that the newspaper will find a suitable leadership other than the ranting dictator who finds joy in manipulating the truth." In 2015, veteran journalist John Matisonn alleged in his book, "God, Spies and Lies: Finding South Africa's Future Through its Past", that the former editor of the newspaper, Tertius Myburgh, was an apartheid era spy. In the same year, Jani Allan supported the allegations made against her former editor in an opinion piece published by the Daily Maverick.