Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire (BM): You wrote for\u00a0Forbes<\/em>\u00a0magazine and you were a TV journalist for CNBC Africa. Did you train as a journalist?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Panashe Chigumadzi (PC):<\/em>\u00a0I studied accounting as my undergraduate degree. In my third year, when I decided I would not become a chartered accountant, I decided that the way to become a fiction writer was to start in journalism, specifically financial journalism. It worked because I had a degree in accounting. The Africa Business News Group, which owns CNBC and Forbes Africa, is where I started, working as a reporter for a year. Thereafter I decided that I wanted to understand the business of media, so I moved to the corporate side of the company and worked in the office of the managing director of the group. That was when I wrote a column for\u00a0Forbes Woman Africa<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n All my journalistic training was on the job \u2013 sometimes that is what makes you a better journalist. If you understand the subject matter, you can learn the skill of writing on the job. Understanding the subject matter is what distinguishes a great journalist. You can have the form and the skills to conduct an interview, but you would be unable to challenge your interviewee or have a robust discussion if you lacked knowledge of the subject matter. Journalists whose only background is in journalism sometimes struggle when they have to interview people who are experts, particularly in a specialized field like financial journalism. If you are speaking to a CEO about their financial statements and you have had zero exposure to financial statements, you can\u2019t do an in-depth interview. The people who read your work have that knowledge, of course, and it won\u2019t serve them if you are just asking surface-level questions.<\/span><\/p>\n BM: Did you start the\u00a0Vanguard<\/em>\u00a0group while you were working with the Africa Business News Group or was that something that came later?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n PC<\/em>: I had worked in media because I was interested in the idea of changing mind-sets and really understanding how we could use media particularly for us as Africans and as black people. When I began to work on the corporate side, I understood that it was not good enough simply to have black people writing. I saw the terrible situation in cultural production where black people were on the screen, the stories were about Africa, about black people, written by Africans, but ultimately the editors, the managers and, most importantly, the owners of the companies tended not to be black Africans or people from the continent.<\/span><\/p>\n
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<\/a>OPINION<\/strong><\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2014\u00a0<\/span>At the age of 25, Panashe Chigumadzi is one of the most prominent intellectual voices in South Africa. Born to Zimbabwean parents, she is currently a Ruth First fellow at the University of Witwatersrand. She is the founder of Vanguard magazine and is part of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community. She worked for the Africa Business News Group as a reporter for CNBC and as a columnist for Forbes Woman Africa. In September 2015, her widely acclaimed debut novel, Sweet Medicine, was published by Blackbird Books. TIA\u2019s Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire caught up with Panashe to talk about writing, activism and the importance of black-owned media spaces.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
June 16, 2016<\/p><\/div>\nBetween Our Selves: <\/span><\/h1>\n
An Interview with<\/span><\/h1>\n
Panashe Chigumadzi<\/span><\/h1>\n
By\u00a0Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/h2>\n