Sunday Times (South Africa)
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| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Times Media Group |
| Publisher | Andy Gill |
| Editor | Bongani Siqoko |
| Founded | 1906 |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Johannesburg |
| Circulation | 442,018 weekly |
| Readership | [ 3, 436 000] |
| Sister newspapers | The Times, Financial Mail, Business Day, Sowetan |
| Website | sundaytimes |
The Sunday Times is the South Africa's biggest Sunday newspaper. Established in 1906, the Sunday Times is distributed all over South Africa and in neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland.
The Sunday Times was first published on 4 February 1906 as a weekly, sister publication of the Rand Daily Mail which at the time was "standing alone" against its rival Transvaal Leader.
Founding editor George Herbert Kingswell introduced the slogan "A paper for the People". It was later changed to "The Paper for the People", a slogan that is still in use today. For the first edition of the paper, published on 4 February 1906, 11,600 copies were printed and soon sold out, forcing the paper to print an additional 5000 copies. By November 1909 the paper sales had risen to 35 000.
In 1992, the former columnist Jani Allan sued the British broadcaster Channel 4 for libel over affair allegations involving her and Eugene Terre'Blanche. Allan had interviewed the AWB leader for the Sunday Times. Allan had already settled out of court with the London Evening Standard and Options magazine over similar allegations. The then-news editor of the newspaper, the late Marlene Burger and newspaper astrologer Linda Shaw testified against Allan. Prior to the libel suit, Allan had published articles for the newspaper dismissing the affair allegations. Allan also allowed the newspaper to publish answerphone messages left by Terre'Blanche as well as her threats of taking legal action against Terre'Blanche for nuisance contact. Allan lost the case; the judge ruled that she had not been defamed but did not conclude whether or not an affair had taken place. The case became notorious for violence and a dirty tricks campaign. Publications such as the Financial Mail and Allan herself speculated that the defence witnesses were paid by the De Klerk regime in an attempt to destabilise the far-right in South Africa. Shaw recounted her editor, Ken Owen's reaction to the case: "When I came back from London. Owen stood in the middle of the newsroom and said: 'You have single-handedly destroyed the reputation of every journalist in the country and we have become the laughing stock."
On 13 November 2005, The Sunday Times broke the story that the African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma was being investigated on rape charges. It was reported that Zuma considered legal action against the publication, although it later emerged that an investigation was in fact under way. On 6 December 2005, official rape charges were filed against Zuma. He would later be acquitted of rape.
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