Professional backgrounds

In South Africa, indie info providers include not just former and freelance journalists but also political satirists, subject matter experts and civic-minded community members building grassroots platforms. To begin to understand this professionally diverse group, we collaborated closely with Code for Africa, which has been mapping the country’s indie info provider landscape.

More than half of the interviewees have previous journalism experience; those who don’t are building on previous careers and passions.

Most of the indie info providers in this study (11 of 18) have prior formal experience in journalism, whether as a freelancer or in a staff role. Of the other participants, four of them had worked in the arts and continue to do so and three had deep subject matter expertise that they parlayed into their work: for two, that expertise was professional, while the third writes about “topics that fed my soul from very young.”

Most interviewees coming from journalism backgrounds launched indie brands to navigate a precarious industry.

Seven of the 11 interviewees who had journalism backgrounds began their indie brands as freelancers. They were largely seeking to build their profiles, motivated by the decline in journalism opportunities in South Africa. 

Many don’t necessarily distinguish between their freelance work and their indie brand; social media serves as a way to boost their freelance profile and continue getting contracts from legacy media. One interviewee said, “As a freelancer… I’ve never really been able to rely on a publication to push my work … social media for me, initially, was just on my personal Instagram where it was mostly people I knew.” Others described social media as only indirectly monetizable: having a growing public profile has led to offers of paid work. 

When that hasn’t been effective, indie info providers have started figuring out how to monetize social media directly. One interviewee began a self-funded project after their freelance work dried up and they felt that the journalism world was “collapsing.” They continue to pitch their work to publications while also sharing it online, but they stated that they cannot depend on assignments from publications to cover their expenses. 

This reliance on social media to maintain a flow of opportunities reflects the reality of the South African media environment for journalists, specifically the gig-ification of journalism work. While labor and economic precarity came up in most interviews, only a few individuals mentioned the role of structural factors like race and location, and it wasn’t a question we specifically asked.

While the term “journalist” resonates with many interviewees, some feel the term is too limited. They see “creators” as distinct from “journalists.”

Interviewees lack a unified preference for professional titles, though many gravitate toward journalistic terminology, even if they don’t have a background in the field. When asked what professional title they use on the pre-interview survey, most interviewees offered not just “journalist” but “producer,” “editor,” “publisher” and variations on those titles. On the same survey, 11 of the interviewees said they consider themselves journalists, while seven said, “It’s complicated.” A few feel the term “journalist” encompasses a small portion of everything they do. Not only do they produce journalistic content for their indie brands, they also serve as entrepreneurs, social media managers, salespeople, researchers, engagement teams and more. As one political satirist explained, 

I’m a new media creator who talks about the news and delivers news to people, so in a very simple way, I am a journalist. But I do it through wide-ranging media reading and consumption of information. I do lots of online data research. … I’m definitely doing journalism but in South Africa with our investigative journalists and our frontline beat journalists it feels odd to put me in that category.” 

Still, for some, “journalism” feels confining as a label. One interviewee likes the freedom to combine their personality with their work online, instead of feeling that they have to choose between their interests. Now, with their indie brand, they can address a broader range of topics: “I love journalism, but I’ve never really identified as a journalist. I have so much more to talk about. Firstly, I’m not that into politics, honestly. And it feels like politics and journalism, at least in South Africa, are so intertwined as almost one thing. If you’re a journalist, you’re talking about politics.” This is consistent with previous research showing that the public largely defines the terms “news” and “journalism” somewhat narrowly around current events.

Some South African interviewees consider themselves “creators,” but they see this role as distinct from journalism. At least one person sees becoming a creator as largely positive, an opportunity to expand their professional toolkit. “I felt like I’d be very limited if I only had journalism as a skill,” they said. Others are much more negative about the term, like one interviewee who differentiated creators from “serious people.”

The relative comfort with journalistic titles is consistent with public attitudes, since the South African public generally holds a positive perception of journalists. According to CNTI’s 2024 public survey, 76% of South Africans think that news organizations are a critical part of an informed society. Further, as of 2025, 55% of the South African public trusts news overall, the fifth-highest ranking in the 48-country study.

Interviewees define success as fulfilling their mission to inform while building financial sustainability.

For many interviewees, success includes both mission- and business-related goals — not one or the other. As one interviewee put it, “Success looks like making a thriving living, not a surviving living, off of actually solving the problems I want to solve.” 

Mission-related goals often align with concerns about the state of journalism in the country. As one interviewee stated, they will feel successful when they can employ other journalists, help others do what they love and “show that journalism isn’t dead. There is still something behind it.” Another interviewee’s perspective on success underscores their worries about the exclusion of certain news stories and narratives. They want their work to be “visible” above all else because, “These stories are important. These stories are about people who are invisible in the public discourse. They are people that are ignored, whose suffering is ignored by rich wealthy people whose comfort comes at the expense of those who are suffering the most.” These responses echo larger trends. Specifically, the decreasing number of journalists and the decline in industry funding have led to fewer stories, particularly nuanced stories from local reporters. 

While both topics came up across every interview, some interviewees spoke primarily about measuring success by one metric or the other. In particular, those who highlighted only mission-related goals were largely subsidizing their own indie brands or making major financial sacrifices to continue doing this work. 

Most interviewees who felt prepared to manage a business drew that confidence from prior experience outside of journalism.

Interviewees expressed a lack of preparation for sales and audience-building tasks, while they were more mixed about business management skills. Those who felt ready for the business side of their project had experience outside of journalism and said that previous jobs had equipped them with the business skills needed for their project. Of these interviewees, several had no journalism background. One had worked as a project manager, another as a CEO and a third in labor relations and strategy. A fourth interviewee explained that they used their time in the newsroom to learn the business side, but had also worked in other ventures.

Interviewees who mentioned their journalism school experience expressed that they were ready for the reporting side of journalism — but not for running a business. This finding is to be expected: South African journalism schools, like others around the world, do not prepare their student journalists to be freelancers or to run a business. Instead, these programs focus on preparing their students for a career in the newsroom, a future that might not be a reality for most graduates. 

The only interviewee who mentioned feeling unprepared for journalism-related tasks had recently transitioned from another career. They struggled with the realities of on-site reporting, saying, “When you come from an office environment, you realize as much as it’s the most exciting thing about journalism, going on site, wading through the Blyde River with crocodiles there, that’s an experience that you can’t prepare for.” This unpredictability was compounded by a lack of logistical support. As a newer indie info provider, they felt the lack of infrastructure for freelancers, identifying difficulty with “the mobility, the logistics of it, figuring out how to do things. Unless you are well established [and] you have all of this at your fingertips. The guys that are just beginning or just starting off, there isn’t much support on that side.” These issues are not unique to freelance journalism: Freelancers across industries are likely to face similar challenges, especially the feeling of being unsupported by institutional structures. 

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