David Niddrie: That quiet guy in the corner scribbling in a Moleskine notebook

 

(This article first appeared in City Press)

This may sound like a contradiction, but media activist David Niddrie – who died at his home in Johannesburg this week – left indelible but almost invisible footprints on the South African media landscape. 

The footprints were indelible in that Niddrie contributed to some of the most fundamental changes in the structure of the South African media – breaking down apartheid media institutions, steering a fundamentally progressive approach to ownership and control of the SABC and other media institutions, and innovating crucial new post-apartheid media platforms such as YFM and e.tv. 

But the footprints were almost invisible in that Niddrie never chose the limelight, never sought fame nor reward, and worked behind the scenes wherever possible to bring about revolutionary change. He was the epitome of servant leadership, in it for the cause rather than for reward, and was uncomfortable with any form of public recognition. 

He spoke fondly of the fact that a South African Communist Party branch in the Eastern Cape had been named after him. But he was uncomfortable, even embarrassed, about the Moses Kotane award that was conferred on him by the SACP in 2017 for his “loyalty and commitment in working class struggles”. 

In a way, this behind-the-scenes activism was in Niddrie’s blood since he joined the ANC in 1974 at the age of 21. It was one of the most perilous times for those involved in work for the banned organisation, involving a potentially deadly double act: life-endangering missions and covert work with check-routes, secret codes and dead-letter boxes; and a “public” or legal life which was also, where possible, lived in a low-key way to avoid attracting unnecessary attention from the Security Police. 

In our case, when Niddrie recruited me into an underground unit in 1984, this meant writing racy headlines together for City Press during the day, and creeping out to dig up smuggled copies of banned ANC and SACP propaganda from a dead-letter box at night. 

Many of those underground techniques – working in secret, not raising your head above the parapet, and sometimes living a double life – carried through into other parts of Niddrie’s being. They became habits. They became his way of life. 

But as we reflect on his life, there can be no doubting that Niddrie’s impact on the media landscape – and by no means tangentially on South African politics – was both profound and revolutionary. 

As a journalist, he helped nurture fellow journalists and sharpen the political and societal impact of newspapers such as the Rand Daily Mail, Sunday Post, the Sunday Express, the Sunday Tribune and eventually City Press, where he was production editor from 1982 to 1987. 

After running into irreconcilable differences with the owners of City Press about how to cover the States of Emergency that were in place, Niddrie and I joined forces with fellow former colleague Mono Badela to form The Other Press Service (TOPS) – with Niddrie and Badela providing compelling coverage of the dying days of apartheid to a range of global media outlets. 

While doing this, Niddrie played a seminal role in building the layer of “alternative” media publications that were emerging – Work In Progress and Vrye Weekblad in particular – and in the formation of the Association of Democratic Journalists, which mobilised progressive journalists against apartheid. 

He eventually moved out of formal journalism and became an activist and policy-shaper, working in the Campaign for Open Media and the Campaign for Open Broadcasting to reshape the policy environment in which the SABC operated, and assisting in ensuring the SABC provided objective coverage of the 1994 elections. 

After helping to “de-apartheid” the SABC, Niddrie then joined the broadcaster as head of strategic planning and worked with the late Zwelakhe Sisulu to de-racialise the SABC and build a more sustainable corporation. 

He moved on from the SABC to form media-building collectives that were to eventually form YFM – one of the most pioneering interventions in the media landscape – and e.tv, which is today known as ENCA. Later, around 2010, he would serve a difficult brief stint on the SABC board (which he typically described as like having kidney stones, piles and diarrhoea all at the same time). 

In essence, then, one could say Niddrie was at the heart of destroying apartheid media structures through activism – and then creating people-centred democratic post-apartheid media structures through policy work and active leadership. 

He was, without question, one of our country’s leading media shapeshifters. 

Throughout these post-apartheid projects, he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to build the South African Communist Party’s media profile – for example, editing the party journal The African Communist and its newsletter Umsebenzi for the last 23 years – and working as adviser to former Minister Yunus Carrim and, in the role he was playing when he died, as advisor to Minister Blade Nzimande. 

Almost everyone who came into contact with Niddrie would have something to say about his personality, or his soul. Wry, dry and brilliant, he didn’t suffer fools lightly. 

He was a deep, deep thinker – that quiet guy in the corner, scribbling in a Moleskine notebook, that you couldn’t quite work out. But when he spoke, and in particular if he differed with you, it could be a withering experience. His insightfulness, his ability to analyse and dissect, his political wisdom and principles, were unavoidable. His logic was sophisticated and intense; but his message often landed with a hard thud, a verbal punch in the throat, for people who were unable to argue with as much knowledge – and force. 

Sometimes that force even became physical. When we worked together at City Press, for example, an errant news editor missed a crucial deadline. Niddrie confronted him, the debate became physical, and the resulting fist fight saw them rolling through the door of the ladies’ toilets – where the fight continued until Niddrie was reminded that we had a newspaper to produce. 

From that day on, Niddrie was no longer known in the newsroom as David – he was David and Goliath, giant and giant-killer in one. 

The best comparison I can lean on to “explain” David Niddrie is eccentric jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. 

I was once told that jazz fans either love Davis’ sound with a passion or hate his guts – but they all have an opinion of him, because he was so talented that he could not be ignored. It was the same with Niddrie: people who interacted with him either loved him or hated him (and sometimes a bit of both at the same time). He was a genius, and a difficult one. He had fallouts, make-ups and fallouts again. But his intellect, his power of thinking – and, centrally, his consistency and his completely selfless commitment – were unavoidable. 

Niddrie was a necessary, probing, relentless and articulate irritant to many he met. But his principles and his thoughts could never be ignored, and should never be forgotten. He has left hugely important indelible marks, invisible but permanent footprints, that cannot and must not be swept away. DM 

Chris Vick was recruited into the ANC and SACP by Davd Niddrie in 1984, while both were working at City Press. They carried out underground missions together until the liberation movements were unbanned in 1990, and remained close friends and comrades.