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Benjamin Pogrund

Dr Claudelle has a conversation with veteran journalist and renowned author Benjamin Pogrund who was friends with, and wrote about, the likes of Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe. Pogrund shares lessons he learned during his illustrious career.

Benjamin Pogrund is a veteran journalist, who was with the Rand Daily Mail newspaper in Johannesburg for 26 years and pioneered the reporting in the mainstream press of black politics and black existence under apartheid.

He has received multiple awards and has done work for the Sunday Times (London), and the Boston Globe, the Economist (London), BBC TV and radio, ITV and Sky TV, Today, The Independent, Guardian (London), Facta (Tokyo), Daily Beast (New York), the New York Times, the New Republic, Haaretz (Tel Aviv), Dialogue (Dhaka), The Star, Cape Times and Daily Dispatch in South Africa, among many others. He has also lectured on international news and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 He was friends with black political leaders, notably the late Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela (and was the first non-family visitor, after 20 years, allowed to visit him in prison), and King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho.

During Apartheid, he was jailed for refusing to disclose the source of information of a report. He was later prosecuted over a period of four years for exposing abusive conditions in prisons of blacks and political prisoners. He was also prosecuted for possession of “banned” newspapers. He was denied a passport for more than five years. A true journalist at heart, he has displayed extraordinary courage and lived to tell the tales. 

Dr Claudelle von Eck in conversation with Benjamin Pogrund: Part 1

Dr Claudelle and Benjamin Pogrund has a discussion around the lessons he has learned from his time as a journalist during apartheid South Africa and the courage he had to display as he exposed the reality of black existence in South Africa.

Dr Claudelle von Eck in conversation with Benjamin Pogrund: Part II

Dr Claudelle and Benjamin Pogrund discuss leadership and the lessons he learned from his interaction with political leaders like Mandela and Sobukwe, with whom he had formed friendships during the apartheid years in South Africa.  

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