Ferial Haffajee: On hate, hope and holding the line for media freedom
Despite the abundance of echo chambers, Ferial Haffajee shows that engaging with dissenting voices isn't just a democratic necessity but a refreshing antidote to the monotony of agreement.
Illustrative image: Politcally Aweh/ Ferial Haffajee | KG Mokgadi
It’s a conversation that has turned even more timely and poignant in light of the recent killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in the United States. With her half a million followers on X and unapologetically progressive views, Ferial Haffajee is a frequent target for online trolls and South Africa’s more conservative voices. But earlier this year, she hosted the South African-born editor of Breitbart, Joel Pollak, on the Daily Maverick’s show
style="font-weight: 400;">Power Chat, demonstrating an openness to engaging outside the echo chamber.
Asked by KG about the importance of speaking to people you don’t necessarily agree with, she replied: “It’s the fundament of democracy, otherwise all you’re doing is creating an echo chamber, and honestly it’s helluva boring to only speak to and interview people you agree with.”
Haffajee brushed aside KG’s introduction as a “legend” and insisted that she was just a journalist. But “just a journalist” doesn’t survive decades of hate campaigns, disinformation smears and State Capture exposés. Haffajee was candid about why she stepped back from the relentless pace of being an editor.
“Being an editor is a 24/7, 365 job. And I found it left very little space for life, and I wanted to do other things.”
Asked about the
style="font-weight: 400;">vicious disinformation campaigns targeting her during the State Capture years, Haffajee described how early deep fakes were weaponised to discredit her.
“So I would wake up to scrolls of myself in Johan Rupert’s bed, on his lap, being walked like a dog. It was very early deep fake stuff. So it was gross and poorly put together, but it was still extremely hurtful.”
She says experiences like that made her reconsider the toll of editing on her life, warning that for women the thin line between abuse online and violence in the real world can be crossed frighteningly fast.
“There was recently an advocate acting on behalf of the SA Revenue Service. She was shot. There was a prosecutor killed in a hit in July in Gqeberha. There’s obviously the case of the whistleblower Babita Deokaran.”
Politically Aweh recently covered the growing issue of online misogyny in a deep dive into the “manosphere” — a network of influencers and spaces online that promote masculinity, misogyny and opposition to feminism.
Haffajee says freedom of expression has guardrails, but censorship is not the answer. Instead, she advocates for independent and self-regulatory systems.
“I have got into trouble with the Press Council and have had to have made apologies more times than I am comfortable with. To show you that you need systems of hopefully self-regulation, independent regulation. What you don’t want is the big state determining what can be said and what can’t be said.”
Media freedom
KG, never shy of a provocation, posed the big one: would media freedom not be a small price to pay if South Africa could become as successful as China, but Haffajee’s response was an unequivocal “No!”
Haffajee is as worried about AI as she is about authoritarianism. She sees the relationship with Big Tech as a double-edged sword: it has enabled platforms like Politically Aweh to make content cheaper and easier to distribute, but its unchecked growth has also led to an unfair playing field for local media. Regulators must push Big Tech to pay its fair share.
The conversation turned to South Africa’s political and democratic trajectory under the Government of National Unity (GNU). She has spent many years reporting on State Capture and the destruction of the state.
“To suggest that everything’s okay? Not at all. But what I want to show is that we’re in a much better place, and that what it requires is momentum. And how do you encourage momentum? By people being active, ‘aweh’ citizens.”
Finally, the inevitable question, KG wanted to know if she’s ever been bribed? Sadly no one has ever tried, but what she loves about her tribe is that they’re unbribable.
It was the kind of sharp, witty exchange that characterises both Politically Aweh and Haffajee herself: always holding the line, always finding humour in the absurd, and always pushing South Africans to face uncomfortable truths.
And that, legend or not, is why South Africa still needs Ferial Haffajee.
To watch Politically Aweh’s previous podcast interview from the 2025 Daily Maverick Gathering with investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Meyburgh, click here. DM
Illustrative image: Politcally Aweh/ Ferial Haffajee | KG Mokgadi 