Product Description

When Benjamin Pogrund, one of South Africa's most distinguished journalists, first began his career as a young reporter in the 1950s, "There had been little reason at that stage to believe that anything revolutionary was about to start."
As the "African affairs reporter," and then deputy editor, it was Pogrund who first brought the words of black leaders like Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela to the pages of South Africa's leading newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail. This was the period of apartheid in South Africa and for most of the next thirty years, the Rand Daily Mail was the country's liberal white voice against the tyranny of the Afrikaner Nationalist government.
A riveting memoir and a complex commentary on apartheid and freedom of the press, War of Words offers an insider's perspective on one of the most turbulent, and arguably one of the most significant, periods in modern history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1844204 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-01
• Released on: 2000-03-07
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 9.33" h x 1.23" w x 6.25" l, 1.53 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 381 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The Rand Daily Mail was the journalistic conscience of apartheid South Africa, and Pogrund, who worked at the newspaper from 1958 until it was closed in 1985, was its specialist on black politics. His worthy but dry memoir focuses on professional more than personal history, detailing how the newspaper aimed to resist censorship, spot-light oppression and prepare readers for change while covering the momentous events of the 1960s and the years following. As a college student in Cape Town, Pogrund made his first contacts across racial lines; he also concluded that communism was no alternative to apartheid. As a journalist, he put in time at black political meetings, gaining insight and earning trust--so much so that he received phone calls from Nelson Mandela when the black leader was in hiding. Resisting restrictions on reporting, Pogrund produced a 1965 series on South African jail conditions that shocked the world. The Mail forged on until it was closed by its owners (establishment businessmen who grew uncomfortable with the paper's finances and politics)--and Pogrund has set the historical record straight by getting them to acknowledge their shortsightedness. He describes his professional ethos as "dispassionate"--he sought to avoid judgment in news articles while expressing more of a viewpoint in his feature articles. His resistance to advocacy journalism deserves more reflection here, as does his close friendship with black leader Robert Sobukwe, who is barely mentioned. Pogrund, who briefly mentions his "private passion" for the preservation of political documentary material, is a more interesting personality than he lets on. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Pogrund recalls South Africa's slide into the last terrible years of the Afrikaner nationalist government, beginning with the police shooting of 69 unarmed blacks at Sharpeville in March 1960, which resulted in the State of Emergency. He unfolds three stories: South Africa's; that of Johannesburg's Rand Daily Mail, for which he wrote from 1958 until its demise in 1985; and his own. Pogrund recounts his boyhood as the son of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants and his adult commitment to dispassionate reporting that could not be used as propaganda by anyone. The book is a view of apartheid's bloodiest years from inside South Africa's leading newspaper by a man who knew the country's leaders personally and who appears candid about his own mistakes and those he saw on all sides. Fascinating in both its perspective and detail, this book effectively complements Pogrund's two earlier works, Nelson Mandela: Strength and Spirit of a Free South Africa and How Can Man Die Better: Sobukwe and Apartheid. Recommended for collections on South Africa, apartheid, race relations, and journalism.
-Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
BENJAMIN POGRUND began working as a journalist for South Africa's Rand Daily Mail in 1958. He quickly became their specialist on "black affairs," with the title of "African affairs reporter," covering the activities of the ANC and black leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, both of whom became Pogrund's lifelong friends. He rose to eventually become deputy editor of the paper during his 26-year tenure there. Pogrund survived the years under apartheid, as well as the demise of the Rand Daily Mail itself in the 1980s. Today, Pogrund heads the Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem, where he lives with his wife, Anne, an artist.