He was detained on suspicion of driving anti-apartheid activists to the Botswana border.
1942-2014
GAVIN Stewart, who has died in Cape Town at the age of 71, was the head of the journalism department at Rhodes University, editor of the Daily Dispatch and a founding editor of the South African National Editors’ Forum.
He worked on a variety of publications, including the Sunday Times, Golden City Post, Drum, Natal Witness and the Rand Daily Mail, as a reporter, photographer, subeditor, news editor, production editor, layout artist and editor.
He also found time for political activism. In the 1960s, he was arrested and spent three months in detention in Pretoria on suspicion of driving antiapartheid activists on the run from the security police to the Botswana border and exile. He managed to talk his way out of jail without being charged.
Stewart was born in Johannesburg on April 23 1942. He matriculated at Northlands Boys’ High in Durban and obtained a degree in fine arts and psychology at the Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of Natal.
He claimed that he used his psychological training, plus a trick picked up from school judo, to avoid being shot — he was shot at but not hit — in a hijacking attempt many years later.
After a stint at the Natal Witness, he joined the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg.
In 1968, South African Associated Newspapers, which owned the Rand Daily Mail, launched a suburban newspaper for the northern suburbs of Johannesburg called The Northern Reporter. Stewart, who by that time had a diploma in typography and design from the University of the Witwatersrand, was appointed its first news editor.
The Northern Reporter folded after about a year, and after briefly rejoining the Rand Daily Mail newsroom he left to become a senior lecturer in journalism at Natal Technikon.
In 1978, he completed an honours degree in communication through the University of South Africa and, in 1980, he became a professor of journalism and then head of the department at Rhodes University.
Under his leadership, it hosted regular events to keep in touch with the real world. A highlight was an international conference on media and transformation, which he organised in the early 1990s. He also participated in numerous debates on changing the media dispensation in the build-up to the 1994 elections.
The 1980s were hectic times politically, no more so than in the Eastern Cape. With him at the helm, members of his department played a major part in supporting the Eastern Cape News Agency and bolstering its capacity to report on events as they unfolded.
At a time when black students were not exactly welcomed with open arms at Rhodes, he worked hard to secure financial support for them to study there, starting the Steve Biko scholarships with Donald Woods.
In 1993, he became editor of Woods’s old newspaper, the Daily Dispatch in East London, and guided it with a steady hand and unshakeable ethical standards through the most momentous period in South Africa’s history.
He served as the editor until 2004, after which he became head of the print department at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism in Johannesburg.
Stewart, described by an old friend as a blend of flinty scepticism and Castle-infused warmth, combined intellectuality with a zest for outdoor adventure. He was variously a keen sailor, cave explorer and rock climber.
He died within weeks of being diagnosed with cancer and is survived by two children with his first wife, Ingrid, and two with his current wife, Sue. — Chris Barron
Article Source: Sunday Times