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The former editor of the Cape Times, Tony Heard, who died this week, will be remembered for many things, but mostly as a journalist's journalist, an editor who rose to meet the challenge of difficult times, an editorial light in a time of darkness, writes Anton Harber.
In the late 1980s, the publishers of the four major newspaper groups emerged from a closed-door meeting with the Minister of Home Affairs, Stoffel Botha, to discuss the latest version of the emergency media regulations.
Those regulations were fiercely draconian, making it extremely difficult to cover the major story of the day – the uprising that had townships around the country in flames – and threatening to close those publications that tried to do so. Don't worry, the publishers said in effect, if not in these exact words, Botha assured us that we were not the target and it was only aimed at the radicals and troublemakers in what was known as the "alternative media".
