Looking back in admiration

As staff face retrenchments, a print dinosaur gives three (relative) hatchlings the microphone

- Christian Stephen

As a paid-up member of the print dinosaurs club, and having worked at the Mail & Guardian for almost 25 years, it is easy to claim ownership of deep affection and respect for this unique publication.

It is definitely not because of the M&G's generous salary packages that I have worked here for so long. Back in the 1990s, and even after I rejoined the M&G in 2010 the newsroom was always occupied by a wildly diverse range of characters. Eccentric, passionate, committed, talented, courageous, argumentative, but all united by the desire to expose corruption, injustice and wrongdoing, to question authority, to analyse events as they unfolded, to tell the stories of South Africans and to write about the things that interested them.

Being a member of the production team, these people could be immensely frustrating because meeting deadlines was not high on their list of priorities, but what they produced in the end was always worth the wait.

I have worked in many newsrooms in South Africa but it was at the M&G that I found a home. Most importantly, I found a place where I could be proud of the work that we did and my role in the newspaper that we produced.