Cape Town - Stellenbosch University has honoured award-winning journalist, author and activist Zubeida Jaffer with an honorary doctorate at its December graduation.
She received the degree Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil), honoris causa, at an in-person graduation ceremony for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences on Monday.
Jaffer was honoured for her outstanding contribution to the South African media industry, her commitment to factual and accurate reporting so as to inform and empower and for sharing her knowledge to guide a new generation of journalists.
“Thank you for bestowing the university’s highest accolade on me.
I must admit that it came as a huge surprise but a pleasant one," she said in her acceptance speech.
"I stand here this morning for those journalists and others who have made enormous efforts, not only to secure freedom in this country but do so on a platform constantly committed to uniting all South Africans in their diversity and not encouraging the impulse towards separateness.
Journalists and others who understood that they were not better than other South Africans but needed to work together as human beings rather than separately to achieve everyone’s highest potential."
Jaffer started her career at the Cape Times in 1980 and later helped develop local community papers such as Grassroots during the time of resistance to apartheid.
She was the founding editor of Independent Newspapers’ parliamentary bureau, serving 14 newspapers across South Africa.
Her articles have appeared in newspapers across Africa as well as further afield, such as Japan, India, the United Kingdom and United States.
Jaffer holds a Master’s degree from Columbia University in New York and is a research fellow at the University of the Free State.
Committed to safeguarding the future of free and accurate reporting, she is also the publisher of the website The Journalist.
She is the first woman in Africa to have won the coveted foreign journalist award from the United States National Association of Black Journalists.
Cape Times