Raymond Louw

Born in Cape Town, Union of South Africa, on 13 October 1926, Louw attended Parktown Boys' High School in Johannesburg. After completing his matric, he sat a railway exam and was accepted for an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer but instead took a job as a copy holder at the Rand Daily Mail.[5]^:17 He would apply several time to be a reporter but he claimed was turned down due to his Afrikaner sounding surname even though he was English, so it took two years to become a junior reporter in 1946.[5]^:17[6]

To improve his journalism experience, he left with his wife for six years of work experience in England.[5]^:17 There he worked as a reporter on the Worthing Gazette and Barrow Evening News.[5]^:17 After he returned to South Africa, he became the night news editor of the Rand Daily Mail and in 1959, became the editor of the Sunday Times.[6] He replaced Laurence Gandar as editor of the Rand Daily Mail in 1965 and was seen an apolitical candidate than the former editor, less likely to offend the government.[6][5]^:17

In 1974 the board of the Mail attempted to remove him by asking him to chair a committee to implement an electronic editing project but refused.[5]^:17 By 1975 he assisted in preventing the South African Associated Newspapers (SAAN) being purchased by government backed buyers which is successful, changed the editorial content of the group.[5]^:17 In October 1976 he was fired as editor of the Mail and the board reluctantly appointed as the General Manager of SAAN in 1977.[5]^:17 Though given no work for five months, he held the position until 1982 when his position ended during company wide restructuring.[5]^:17

After his retrenchment in 1982, he continued to maintain an interest in journalism.[5]^:17 In 1983, he and his wife started a weekly newsletter, the Southern African Report, a publication they maintained until 2010 when they sold it.[5]^:17 On the demise of the Rand Daily Mail in 1985, he attempted to rescue it by seeking new backers and attempting to get the owners to reverse their decision.[7] In 1989, he met the ANC in Lusaka with other journalists and businessmen as part of the Five Freedoms Forum.[8] He headed the Media Defence Trust, an organisation created to assist journalists censored or imprisoned.[5]^:17 In 1996, he campaigned for the release of jailed journalists around the world and helped in the release of Pius Njawé and Ali Lmrabet.[6] He was vice president of the South African branch of PEN International.[6] As chair of the New Era Schools Trust, it helped establish non-racial schools.[6] And he helped found the University of Witwatersrand's Media Business Training Foundation which assisted to improve the training of Black business journalists.[6]

He met his wife Jean, a sister of a colleague at the Rand Daily Mail and they married in 1949.[5]^:17

He received an honorary doctorate of literature from Rhodes University in 2012 and the same honour from the University of Witwatersrand in 2015.[9] Awards included the Pringle Medal for services to journalism from the SA Society of Journalists.[9] In 2005, received the Media Freedom Award from Media Institute of Southern Africa.[9] In 2007, he received the Mondi-Shanduka Newspaper Lifetime Achiever Award.[9] Louw was awarded the International Press Institute award for Press Freedom Campaigning in 2011, jointly with Daniel Pearl.[5]^:17

He died on 5 June 2019 at the age of 92 of a heart attack after recovering from an operation for a kidney infection.[10] His wife Jean died the day before, following an operation after breaking her hip in a fall a week earlier.[7] He is survived by daughter Fiona Ramsay and Derek Louw.[7]