Anna Majavu, a Zimbabwe-born South African journalist, trade unionist and civil rights advocate, has been appointed as the Pacific Media Watch freedom project contributing editor for 2014.
Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie announced this today, saying the position is awarded to a current AUT journalism postgraduate student each year.
"It's a privilege to be working with Pacific Media Watch," Majavu said.
"I look forward to being part of this project upholding media freedom and the rights of Pacific journalists throughout the region.'
Majavu is an MPhil journalism student in the School of Communication Studies attached to AUT's Pacific Media Centre.
She studied undergraduate journalism at the Durban University of Technology in South Africa in the 1990s and since then has worked as a journalist, subeditor, researcher, advocacy officer, legal advisor and publicist for organisations such as the South African Municipal Workers Union, South Durban Community Environmental Alliance and Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce,
Majavu's most recent fulltime journalist position was as the Sowetan newspaper's parliamentary correspondent in South Africa, between 2008 and 2011, where she broke many front page stories.
Development fellowship
She also won a writing fellowship from Panos development news agency in London, focusing on the struggle of oppressed South African women to own their own homes.
Majavu has also been published in The Guardian and Sydsvenskan (Sweden).
During 2013, she was a regular contributor to Pacific Scoop and the South African Civil Society Information Service.
Born in Zimbabwe to New Zealand-Scottish parents, Majavu grew up in South Africa before moving to New Zealand in 2011. She currently works part-time in the Auckland office of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance - the Australasian union for journalists, actors, film crew and musicians.
Majavu is new to the Pacific region, but has taken a keen interest in issues such as press freedom, anti-racism and the involvement of multinational corporations in the oppression of indigenous Pacific citizens.
She succeeds Daniel Drageset who was the PMW contributing editor last year.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
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