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Our shining Sun keeps growing!

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Keith Henderson.
Keith Henderson.

ON a cold winter’s night at the beginning of July in 2002, I got onto a bus with a fresh-faced group of media types in Auckland Park and started on an adventure that would change the face of journalism in Mzansi forever.

We were heading to the printing plant to watch the first People’s Paper come out of the printing press.

Along for the ride was The Great White Hyena himself, Deon du Plessis, the man who had the idea of Daily Sun.

At the factory, the staff seated around buckets of KFC and a couple of drinks, we witnessed history in the making. The company representative congratulated us and warned that we had three months to make something of it.

That was 20 years ago.

As our numbers started increasing rapidly in those early days, we soon realised that SunLand was hungry for Daily Sun. We took the media world by surprise, and no one could do anything but watch as we rapidly became the number one read daily newspaper in the country, which we still are today.

From my vantage point as a sub-editor on the paper (someone who checks words and designs pages), I watched our shining Sun grow.

Themba “TK” Khumalo became our first editor, famous for his Sledgehammer column.

The People’s Paper rapidly became exactly that – a paper which told the stories of people who were mostly ignored by other media. It developed a reputation for helping others – and hence SUNPOWER was born.

The phone never stopped ringing in the newsroom and SunReaders became our extended family.

The Great White Hyena loved every minute of Daily Sun, so much so that he came into the office every day to help produce the paper. He expected nothing but the very best from his people.

When the World Cup fever hit South Africa in 2010, we launched DAILYSUN.CO.ZA so that we could cover games that happened too late for the paper.

A new baby had been born. At the end of that year, I left to work in TV news for a while, but my heart remained with the People’s Paper.

Then, in 2011, tragedy struck. Deon died of acute bronchitis at his home, leaving everyone in shock.

But by then, Daily Sun and its readers had become something that lived in the hearts of the people who worked for it. It wasn’t like any other job. To every one of us in the newsroom, SunLand and SunReaders were all that mattered. It soldiered on. Soon after that, while still working in TV, I noticed in the paper that Daily SunTV was about to be launched. I couldn’t resist and found a way back to work on the TV show, which ran for three seasons on DStv. We also made a couple of SunFilms. Daily Sun was now a 10-year-old and growing as a brand.

The People’s Paper has been my home for almost as long as it’s been published. We now have more readers online than we do in print. With Sun’Ceda we’ve had another successful run of TV shows, doing what we love doing the most – helping to change the lives of people who live in SunLand.

When I got in my car and left Cape Town at the end of 2001 after losing my job, I had no idea I was about to embark on the greatest adventure of my life.

As Deon always used to say – Onwards and Upwards!

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