#SliceofGasant columnist Gasant Abarder shed a quiet tear as he learned recently that The Cape Argus was to be moved out of the iconic Newspaper House.
The separation between newspaper and building is a blight on the history of Cape Town.
In 1857, Saul Solomon counted the first pennies of revenue on the now antique dining table in his office in Newspaper House. What followed was the Cape Argus becoming a household name in both Cape Town and the rest of the country – Cape Town’s first serious newspaper and among the oldest in the country. It would set about a storied history of a cornerstone of this city and South Africa.
It was there for two world wars, the advent of apartheid, the ushering in of a new democracy, 9/11, the Marikana Massacre and much much more. In 2024, the paper is still going but has been chipped at by the coming of new media and can no longer count itself as a newspaper of record.
In around 2015, Gasant Abarder, the youngest ever editor at 31 of the newspaper’s almost 170-year history, shared a steak gatsby from Mariam’s Kitchen with his deputy editor Yunus Kemp and chief sub-editor Colin Appolis on that very same table where Saul counted those pennies. With that simple act, the trio claimed their own part of history – cut in three sizeable portions.
It was with great sadness that I learnt a few days ago that the Cape Argus and its sister paper the Cape Times would no longer be headquartered at Newspaper House. Instead, media workers from these fine establishments now have to book a hot spot desk at Independent Media’s corporate HQ at Convention Towers on the foreshore.
Even if you hadn’t worked for these two titles – including the Daily Voice, the Cape Herald and a host of Community Newspapers – you’ll know that Newspaper House represented something significant in the landscape of South African media.
In the late 2000s, the then Irish-owners sold the building for a rumoured R80-million to help service its debt with European banks. The newspapers were then tenants of the building that was such a big part of Saul’s legacy – to create The Cape Argus as a conduit for a changing city in conversation with itself.
Newspaper House was in the trenches; in the proverbial bowels of the City Bowl in St George’s Mall. All manner of folks arrived at the spacious reception area on the ground floor to advertise, place smalls in the Classified section or to tell a yarn that could make the next edition. It was at the pulse of Cape Town and located within walking distance for journos to access the High Court, the Western Cape legislature or City Hall.
Mostly, this kind of access gave the journos there an edge as they could walk the streets and pick up stompies that could later become a front-page lead. Often, this editor bumped into a high court judge who shared a discreet tidbit that would later be splashed across The Argus front page.
More than that, it was a home away from home for media workers where we celebrated when Zephany Nurse was finally reunited with her biological parents only for it to unfurl into drama, where the Station Strangler’s reign of terror was documented, where throngs of matriculants would gather at the rear of the building in Burg Street to see their names in the paper of a passing class, where the Cape Argus lead was written by a homeless man and students co-edited an edition of the paper.
If the walls of Newspaper House could talk, it would tell of the macabre jokes in news conferences to help hacks cope with disaster and bloodshed and the mad rush where expletives were soon forgotten and laughed off as the deadlines came and gone.
The irony is that when it was first announced to staff that the building would be sold, I suggested that the company leverage the unused floors for retail and charge rent. Why couldn’t we have a Pick n Pay on the ground floor and use this kind of revenue to boost the ailing newspaper company’s fortunes?
The suggestion was laughed off and dismissed by the powers that be that we weren’t in the business of retail. To me, it was about diversifying income streams and an attempt to pivot traditional establishments towards modern times. It wasn’t to be and the move out of Newspaper House as tenants was only a matter of time.
The newspaper company that has been such a large part of the lives of Capetonians over centuries had a Kodak moment. Kodak refused to ditch film and ignored digital. An iconic brand was dying a quick death and is no longer; its memories etched on retro t-shirts that hipsters wear. I pray the Cape Argus doesn’t follow the same fate.
Cape Town will never be quite the same now that the Cape Argus and its affiliated brands are scattered all over the city. It is a blow to the fourth estate, the South African media landscape and democracy.
Also read:
Let’s make 2024 the year of saving after the Janu-worry marathon
Picture: Supplied