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Daily Maverick is a unique blend of news, investigations, analysis and opinion. We are a South African based publication with a worldview.

Every part of Daily Maverick is free to access and no payment is required, although some civic-minded readers participate in our voluntary membership programme designed to keep our journalism free for all.

Daily Maverick is run by an independently owned, private company with no affiliation to any other media group (or political party or religious organisation.)

It is funded through membership reader contributions, advertising, events and grants.

If you’d like to reach out to us with questions you can contact us via email.

Faith • Trust • Belief

In the years since Daily Maverick’s inception in 2009, the proliferation of social networks and online content has brought never-before-seen public participation into the information universe.

However, this internet-fuelled revolution also brought a change in the flow and quality of information. As a result of this explosion of digital content, what constitutes facts, trust and accuracy have all suffered. It is often said that lies travel halfway around the world before the truth has even managed to get out of bed.

Misinformation, lies and disinformation campaigns are now part of our everyday digital worlds.  And one of the most effective ways to fight this onslaught is with high impact, independent public service journalism.

For us, journalism needs to do two things. Firstly, our constitution specifically asks that we help protect our fledgling democracy. And we do that with a huge investment in accountability journalism.

Secondly, journalism should help you navigate life. Helping you make better decisions, have better conversations and ultimately, aid you in the pursuit of a better life. We do this by explaining the impact of big events, providing perspective from the most experienced newsroom in South Africa’s history and bringing a range of opinions from a network of contributors that you might not agree with but will definitely want to know what they’re thinking about.

We feel we have proven our worth to you, many times over. But don’t just take our word for it. The judges at the Global Shining Light, Nat Nakasa, Taco Kuiper, Vodacom, Standard Bank and Bookmark awards have over the years repeatedly acknowledged the quality and impact of our amazing team.

Our goal is that we have a relationship of trust, where you can safely believe what you read on Daily Maverick’s pages – no matter what noise proliferates out in the world – and on your phone.

Our vision is that when you spend your valuable time with our journalism, you will know more and know better. We do that by going all out to “Defend Truth”.

Reader Covenant (written in 2009)

These are our promises to you, and what we expect from you in return.

Give us a tiny slice of your time and we’ll give you the world. We’ll also throw in a whole lot of fun, just to sweeten the deal.

In the background, there’s a whole lot more to it, of course, but that’s all just detail. Daily Maverick exists to provide you with the news, analysis, investigations, insight and opinion that you need. Whether you’re required to make big decisions or just want to hold your own over lunchtime conversation, we’ll provide the tools.

Here’s another promise: we won’t ever waste your time. We don’t let algorithms decide what is important and what is not. Our journalists and editors are humans and some of the best and most experienced ones around at that. They’ve spent decades refining the craft and, by now, they’re pretty good at it.

The result is a service that will tell you what happened yesterday, what’s happening now and what’s going to happen today and tomorrow – and what it all means.

The important stuff is all here. But we realise you may need more than that. So we’ll provide you with the social currency you need to talk to your friends about that big game yesterday, or to talk to your office buddies about what the world’s, and South Africa’s, next move is going to be. And we’re not going to let you be ignorant about the latest in arts and culture or science and technology either.

We will always be serious about you being a knowledgeable and fun person.

We’ll do all of that for you, day in and day out, and we’ll do it with the greatest of integrity. Nobody will ever pay for our opinions, no matter the size of the chequebook. We will never sell your private information, let somebody else dictate our agenda, or conspire behind your back.

You, dear reader, are at the very centre of the Daily Maverick universe.

How we’re funded

Daily Maverick journalism is funded, mainly, by three sources: philanthropy, commercial activities and support from our readers. By design, we do not have an overreliance on any single revenue source to reduce the impact of any market shocks.

Philanthropic funding is provided by grant funding institutions and individuals to the Public Benefit Organisation that houses our investigative reporting, climate crisis, internship training and civil society reporting teams. Some of these amounts are recurring for specific programmes, and some are once-off per project or focus areas.

No individual donor contributes more than 5% of our total income.

In the last 12 months, we have received grants greater than R150k from the foundations and trusts, including Donald Gordon Foundation, Vital Strategies, Roy McAlpine Charitable Foundation, Claude Leon Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Millennium Trust, Elaine & David Potter Foundation and ABSA.

Other donations are also received from individuals in their personal capacity and no amounts greater than R150,000 have been received in the last 12 months and the majority number small amounts below R1,000.

Commercial revenue is generated through the sale of advertising packages and sponsorships across our digital, print and events properties. Advertising clients range from large corporations to small and medium-sized businesses.

We sell directly to clients, through media buying agencies and through programmatic channels. We do not allow illegal products, tobacco, or sexually explicit content and services to be advertised on our properties.

Despite blocking these categories, advertisers do sometimes slip through the cracks on programmatic channels – please let us know should you see any of them.  In recent years, the breadth of journalism that we pursue has grown to include book publishing and directing feature film documentaries.

Reader support is driven primarily through our membership programme, Maverick Insider. As of May 2022, we have more than 17,500 members who are recurring annual or monthly contributors (who choose the amount of their contribution).

Over the years, a robust and diversified revenue model has allowed us to build a resilient business model where no single source or even category of revenue is overly relied upon.

This helps protect us from market shocks like Covid-19 and industry disruption. Since its inception, all growth has been re-invested into creating new jobs in an industry that has lost more than 50% of its permanently employed workforce in the last decade.

In this period, Daily Maverick has created more than 120 employment opportunities, most of them permanent or near-permanent positions – more than any other media house in the country.

Strategy and direction

The overall business and editorial strategy for the organisation is set by the founders, Branko Brkic (Editor-in-chief) and Styli Charalambous (CEO), in consultation with our team leaders.

Editorial teams are led by section heads and a steering group of 11 people operates as a leadership collective covering the entire breadth of teams inside Daily Maverick.

We also listen to our expert body of some of the best journalists and professionals South Africa has ever seen and regularly take the pulse of the country to assess its pressing needs.

No advertisers, members, grant funders, donors or shareholders are involved in day-to-day or long-term editorial decisions.

While we accept suggestions and tip-offs from the public the final decision to pursue any story is decided upon by the managing editors of respective teams and the editor-in-chief, who also bears ultimate responsibility for all editorial decisions.

The Daily Maverick (Pty) Shareholders

Daily Maverick is wholly owned by an investment holding company which in turn has the following shareholders:

More than 50%
None

More than 25%
Inkululeko South Africa Media (Non-Profit Company)

Less than 15%
Tondox (Pty) ltd
Noble Savage (Pty) ltd
Bakkium Share Trust
KMC Trust
Wolmarans Trust
Polyanna Trust
Angel Trust
Styli Charalambous
Branko Brkic
Tony Rattey

The board of directors are the co-founders Branko Brkic and Styli Charalambous.

Careers

Visit our Announcements Page for information about the latest positions.

Cancellation/Refund Policy

Refunds of voluntary once-off contributions will be considered if applied for within 30 days of making such a contribution. Cancellation requests for ongoing recurring monthly contributions will be processed within 30 days of receipt of notice.

Privacy Policy

We will not give your individual data to anybody, ever, unless they carry guns accompanied by a valid court order.

Some of our e-mail is sent by third-party providers (who have the servers and systems to do so quickly and efficiently); these providers are highly professional companies that comply with stringent requirements for privacy and security on the lists that we give to them.

Also, we know where they live.

We track reader habits; how long an individual spends on the site in a session, whether readers like both politics and entertainment articles, for example. We need that data to understand better how we can better serve you, the reader.

For statistics and analysis, we use the standard Effective Measure and Google Analytics services, like just about any other respectable website in the world. This general data we analyse ourselves (to see what works, where people go, what they read, that kind of thing) and we share some aspects of that data with our advertisers, so they know how many readers we have in Iceland, for example.

The data that we share, however, is generic, overall, and in no way allows for the identification of any reader. You can find the privacy policy for Google Analytics here; it falls under the general Google privacy policy.

When you sign up to receive e-mail from us or to comment on the site, we ask you for certain personal details: a telephone number, the city in which you live, and so on.

This information is optional. If you do provide it, it may make it easier for us to reach you (to tell you how awesome you are, or invite you to coffee) or to provide you with new and exciting services (like information linked with your hometown). Again, this information is not shared with anyone outside Daily Maverick.

We also use technology such as cookies, image tracking in e-mail and other forms of monitoring to help us understand reader needs and optimise the website. All of these techniques are stock standard and all data gathered is only shared with outsiders once we are satisfied that it cannot be abused.

Unless you wear a tinfoil hat to bed every single night, chances are that we are more paranoid about your privacy than you are. May it long stay that way.

Press Council

Daily Maverick proudly displays the “FAIR” stamp of the
Press Council of South Africa, indicating our commitment to
adhere to the Code of Ethics for Print and online media which
prescribes that our reportage is truthful, accurate and fair.
Should you wish to lodge a complaint about our news coverage,
please lodge a complaint on the Press Council’s website,
www.presscouncil.org.za or email the complaint to [email protected] . Contact the Press Council on 011 484 3612.