I will admit I went into this conversation a little defensive.
I have spent most of my career in newsrooms. I know what it takes to get a story right: the phone calls, the documents and the editor who sends it back three times before it runs. When people tell me young South Africans now get their news from TikTok creators, part of me bristles.
Then I sat down with Jaxx Amahle and she made me rethink some of that.
If you are on TikTok, you probably know her. About 300,000 people follow her for her explanations of South African news, which she gives in one long take with a notebook of handwritten notes beside her. When a radio host talks about debt-to-GDP forecasts, she translates: South Africa is borrowing more money than it can afford to pay back.
She is very clear about what she is and what she isn’t.
“I’m not bringing any new information into the ecosystem. What I’m doing is breaking down that information and simplifying it. And it’s very important for me to say simplifying it and not dumbing it down.”
I still pushed her. Creators build on reporting that someone else sat in court for ten hours to get. Nuance gets lost. When reach is rewarded, what is the consequence for getting it wrong?
“I don’t do breaking news. I wait for people like you.”
I didn’t expect to find that reassuring. I did.
Her road here also felt familiar. She spent 12 years in events, marketing and running a restaurant. She burnt out, quit and took six months off. I did the same when I left my job as an editor at 30.
But I wanted to understand what sits underneath the videos.
Where does her interest in politics come from? How does she decide what she won’t talk about? And what does it cost her to keep explaining a country that keeps disappointing her?
Part of the answer is how she was raised. She grew up in a political household, and at 17 she was spending her school holidays watching documentaries about the Cold War. Her father once skipped a meeting to sit down and tell her everything one of them got wrong.
Part of it is what this work has cost her. One video on illegal immigration brought her death threats. She didn’t delete it, but she now admits her tone was wrong.
“It does feel like I’m wagging a finger. I’m talking at people and not with them.”
A part of it is a love for South Africa that she doesn’t apologise for. She will tell you it is the best country in the world. She will also tell you that bad politics makes a bad country.
I asked her what she would fix first if she were mayor of Johannesburg.
“Street lights, please.”
It is a modest answer, and it says a lot that it sounds ambitious.
At the end of every Debrief, I ask my guests how they really are. Jaxx gave me three words.
“Exhausted. But hopeful.”
I don’t think you can do what she does and feel only one of them.
I left the studio having changed my mind about a few things. If you are still deciding how to vote on 4 November, or you have ever wondered who checks the people explaining the news to you, I think this conversation will do the same for you.
Watch the latest episode of The Debrief with Qaanitah Hunter and let me know what you think.
Qaanitah