Two journalists who have been tracking the life and times of Archbishop Desmond Tutu would have been beside themselves with grief on Sunday. They’ve spent nearly three decades in the company of one of the world’s greatest icons, writes Gasant Abarder in a new #SliceofGasant.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
Benny Gool and Roger Friedman. This famous newspaper byline is incomplete if it features one name without the other. It’s like Batman without Robin (although the two will probably argue who is the more important of the two in this formidable partnership).
Benny, the lensman, has a knack for getting the award-winning snaps at just the right moment. Roger, the wordsmith, is worth all thousand words that one of Benny’s pictures can tell.
Benny and Roger were the Special Assignments team of the Cape Times before they moved on to become among my first mentors as the newspaper’s picture editor and news editor respectively. Each lay claim to me as a journalist to harness the individual disciplines. In fact, it was Benny that secured me a job at the Cape Times when I shot some exclusive shots at a crime scene. Roger helped me craft my writing.
I had the privilege of covering Allan Boesak’s appeal to the Supreme Court to have his conviction and sentence set aside. Working with Benny as we drove from Cape Town to Pretoria, pausing in Bloemfontein to cover the appeal, and then back to Cape Town, was an education. A master of his craft. Roger in one week trusted me with an exclusive for an entire week that led the paper each day. And each day he’d give me a nugget to pursue – leaving the biggest scoop for Friday’s paper.
‘What does controversial mean?’ Roger would bark at me as I submitted my copy. He hated superlatives and just stripped your copy of adjectives as you tried to pad out the word count.
‘If nothing happened, then take a picture of nothing,’ Benny would tell photographers coming back to the newsroom without the goods.
Truth be told, they were never going to settle for their desk jobs. They were just too good and too restless. It was the telling of their stories visually and in words that made them a force to be reckoned with.
Their paths would have crossed with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as young journalists during the Struggle. But the bond with The Arch would have been enhanced as they were deployed to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings for the paper. Roger’s incredible news reporting enhanced by Benny’s extraordinary images brought to life the hearings in a way few can do.
Their work captured an important moment in history that we still grapple with today. And, in particular, they captured every emotion through which the The Arch endured during the hearings – the laughter of light moments, the tears, the sadness, the despair.
It was when The Arch retired to life after the hearings and his activism that the relationship between him and Benny and Roger would blossom. They started a media agency together and devoted much of their resources to telling the story of the Arch. Together, they have built an unrivalled repository of story and visuals of the Nobel Peace Laureate.
The bond between the three was palpable. Benny and Roger were like two naughty boys that The Arch would chastise before bursting into his trademark cackle for one of their wise cracks.
Benny and Roger have been relentless. They knew The Arch’s every rhythm and his every quirk. They knew when to press him and when to back off. They would eventually become trusted aides, protecting him from the media when it was appropriate and other forces seeking to do mischief to his legacy.
But most of all they were some of The Arch’s closest friends because the line between journalists and subject had been crossed many years ago. They adored him and the feeling was mutual. Where The Arch went, Benny and Roger would go too.
When I heard about The Arch’s passing on Boxing Day (how apt that he passed on our Day of Goodwill) my thoughts went out to his family. My thoughts went out at the same time to Benny and Roger because they were his family too.
Benny and Roger hold the definitive story of The Arch. He trusted them with his legacy. It is time for the rest of the world to marvel at their incredible storytelling.
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Pictures: Supplied