Press and Politics: Contributions of Sol Plaatje to South African journalism

Abstract

The article looks into the journalism of Solomon Thekisho Plaatje (popularly known as Sol Plaatje) and hiscontributions to the early South African black press and politics. Sol Plaatje remains one of South Africa’smost important political and literary figures. He was a pioneer of black press in South Africa. He was aspokesman of his people and an opinion leader among them. He was the first Secretary of the South AfricanNative National Congress (SANNC) which later became the African National Congress (ANC), the currentruling political party in South Africa. His services to war correspondents as secretary, typist or interpreterand ‘liaison officer’ (to war correspondent Vere Stent) laid the foundation for his careers in journalismand writing. Plaatje edited/published a number of Setswana/English newspapers such as Koranta ea Becoana(Bechuana Gazette), Tsala ea Becoana (Bechuana Friend) which later became Tsala ea Batho (Friend of thePeople) and Our Heritage. He also wrote regularly for English language newspapers such as Star, Pretoria News,Cape Times, Cape Argus and Diamond Fields Advertiser. The study seeks to find out the interplay between SolPlaatje’s journalism and politics and his contributions to South African journalism as a pioneer of the blackpress. The study adopts the historical research method. Data gathered for the study were qualitativelyanalysed. Sol Plaatje’s kind of journalism was developmental as it was geared towards defending his peopleand re-orientating them to better ideals while at the same time trying to build cohesion with the whitepopulace. The study is a contribution to the reconstruction of media history in the post-apartheid SouthAfrica