Local journalism: most disrupted, most urgently in need of assistance. Yet it’s the sector that’s laying down the bedrock for the new, stronger media ecosystem that meets their community needs. Th...
Cheri-Ann James
Cheri-Ann James is the editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, based in East London, South Africa. Since joining the Dispatch team in 2007, Cheri-Ann has held a number of positions including assistant news editor, news editor, managing editor, executive editor and deputy editor. She was appointed the editor of the newspaper in July 2020.
Cheri-Ann is currently a member of Corporate Communication and Marketing Advisory Board for the Walter Sisulu University. The Dispatch has also always been at the forefront of exposing injustice in its region, producing journalism which has brought local and international recognition for the newspaper and its website. Its journalists have won numerous awards over the years including regional and national Vodacom Journalist of the Year, Taco Kuiper, Sikuvile Journalism Awards and CNN African Journalist of the Year Award, among others. One of the Dispatch’s most recent awards was for an investigative series on the Eastern Cape’s ailing health system, which was published just ahead of the Covid-19 crisis. In 2021, the newspaper took its investigative reporting to new heights with the release of a 50-minute documentary entitled Farmer’s Under Siege that follows two journalists from the Daily Dispatch as they investigate the stock theft wars in the Eastern Cape.
