The Witness was established in 1846 by the lawyer David Dale Buchanan and the newspaper continues to live up to its name. One of The Witness’ more striking assets is its independence. Throughout history, a succession of editors have refused to toe the official line and to honour its role as a member of the Fourth Estate.
On Friday, 26 February The Witness will publish a 70gsm constat tabloid-size commemorative supplement. The pull-out will honour this milestone in the newspaper’s history and highlight the role The Witness has played in the development of the Kwa-Zulu Natal Capital and the South African media industry. As part of the celebrations, advertisers will be offered rates in this supplement reduced by 70% through Ads24. This supplement will be showpiece of quality journalism and innovation in print.
“The Witness has always seen itself as a crusader, looking to highlight any cause that has both a positive and negative impact on its readers and has won many national and regional awards for its editorial excellence, such as the Standard Bank Sikuvile award for investigative journalism in 2014,” says Zoubair Ayoob, editor of The Witness.
“The Witness provides a wonderful opportunity for advertisers, not only has it earned its readers’ trust through years of editorial independence and credibility, but it offers a great platform for creative print advertising, seeing itself as a visual paper with as much focus on design as on quality editorial content. This commemorative supplement will probably be kept as a memento by many readers and is a great place for brands to create positive associations with consumers,” says Evan Smith, Ads24: national business manager.
The Witness first became a daily in 1880 when the railway line reached Pietermaritzburg. In 1904, the editor, Horace Rose, was a passenger in the first car to drive between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, it took five hours. In 1907, it published pictures for the first time and the first photograph in 1908. The Witness pulled no punches during its coverage of WWI and II focussing involvement from the people in Natal. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, it became established as the most liberal newspaper in the province and in the 1970’s and 1980’s went up against the apartheid regime with journalists like Donald Woods on the editorial team. The paper bore witness to the violence in the build up to the 1994 elections and covered the democratic election with the same hope and optimism displayed by its readers.
“The paper's liberal credentials were to be fiercely challenged by the apartheid government during ‘the silent sixties’ when banning orders, imprisonment without trial and other draconian measures silenced most forms of opposition,” says Ayoob, “In the coverage of 1994 elections, The Witness was a leader in the use of Alternative Story Forms. This is now the norm, but the paper used graphics, sidebars and other storytelling tools for more than two decades, way ahead of its time."
“Ongoing training ensures that even the youngest graduates are able to hone their craft to deliver the stories which keep our readers coming back for more. As the change to digital becomes more inexorable, our reporters are receiving training in multimedia journalism, which will enable us to deliver content across a variety of platforms, as the news happens. Readers want to be informed and engaged, they want a paper that campaigns on their behalf. With this doom and gloom news they want balance and to be entertained. Like that morning cup of coffee, the day cannot start without The Witness.”