Ferial Haffajee
Farial Haffajee speaking atWiki Indaba 2024.
Born	(1967-02-20)20 February 1967 (age 58)
Occupation	Journalist newspaper editor author
Nationality	South African
Alma mater	University of the Witwatersrand

Ferial Haffajee (born 20 February 1967)^[1][2] is aSouth African journalist and newspaper editor. Haffajee was editor ofCity Press newspaper from July 2009 until July 2016 and was previously the editor of theMail & Guardian newspaper.

Haffajee was awarded the 2014 International Press Freedom Award by theCommittee to Protect Journalists^[3] and was appointed to the board of theInternational Press Institute in 2011.^[4]

Haffajee is currently Associate Editor at theDaily Maverick,^[5] and was previously editor-at-large atHuffPost South Africa until it ended its partnership with Media24 in 2018.^[6]

Haffajee grew up inBosmont, a suburb ofJohannesburg. Her father was a clothing factory worker. She is an alumna of theUniversity of the Witwatersrand.^[7]

Haffajee was a cub reporter atMail & Guardian and has acted as its associate editor, media editor and economics writer at various times. Before taking up the editorship she held jobs at state broadcasterSABC, as a radio producer and television reporter,^[8] and at theFinancial Mail magazine, where she was a senior editor responsible for political coverage and the managing editor.^[9]

Haffajee was appointed editor ofMail & Guardian at the age of 36 effective from 1 February 2004,^[2][10] two years after control of the paper was acquired byZimbabwean publisherTrevor Ncube.^[11]

In 2005 the paper became one of the few publications, after the regime change of 1994, interdicted from publishing specific stories.^[12] In 2006 the paper was again interdicted, and Haffajee threatened, after republishing controversial cartoons depictingMuhammad.^[13]

In March 2009Mail & Guardian announced Haffajee's resignation, saying she would take up the position of editor ofCity Press in July.^[14]Previous speculation had identified her as a potential appointee as head of news at theSABC.^[15]

• Haffajee, Ferial (2015).What If There Were No Whites In South Africa?. Johannesburg: Picador Africa.ISBN 9781770104402. received mixed reviews. One reviewer wrote "the central thrust of the book... argues that black South Africans, especially the new generation of young black, 'born frees', are obsessed with whiteness and white privilege".^[16] Haffajee's contention is that if all whites had left South Africa and their wealth divided among the poor, poverty would hardly have been dented.^[17] The controversial Dan Roodt has noted that underlying her "pastiche of Bosmont memoir, office gossip, antiwhite resentment and racial econometrics, is the idea that whites should ideally disappear".^[18]

• CPJ International Press Freedom Award winners
• 1967 births
• Living people
• Writers from Johannesburg
• South African newspaper editors
• University of the Witwatersrand alumni
• 20th-century South African journalists
• 21st-century South African journalists

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