Tables turned on journalist

The Sunday Times’ foreign correspondent in South Africa is himself subjected to an interview by our two ‘reporters’, Precious (14) and Basetsana (15), who find out what it’s like to be a journalist.

The correspondent is among journalists outside Nelson Mandela’s home in Johannesburg at a time when he has just returned from hospital treatment.  The world – South Africa in particular – is holding its breath that he will be ok.

‘Death and disaster’

The girls find out that much of a foreign correspondent’s world is centred on ‘death and disaster, with a little bit of politics’.  He meets ‘heroes and villains’ every week.  “It’s like being in a movie,” he says.

Sometimes the stories are negative; other times they’re positive – like the time he was on a helicopter on its way to people in Mozambique who were rescued before they would have been overcome by floods.

Not keen on celebrity stories

Sometimes the work is “silly” – especially stories about celebrities.  “I’m not keen,” he says.  Sometimes it’s dangerous: “We’re not soldiers: I don’t know what a landmine looks like, but sometimes you have to be around them… sometimes people will point a rifle at you and you need to encourage them not to shoot you.”

All said, he’d recommend the job to “anyone with energy and curiosity”.