As South Africa evolved, so too did the paper. Today, it is a quality national Sunday broadsheet with reportedly more than 1.6-million readers. It offers cutting-edge journalism and meaningful content to a multicultural demographic. The newspaper's principal target market is the black middle class: urban, young, well-educated and upwardly mobile.
Under current editor-in-chief and the paper's first female editor, Ferial Haffajee, the newspaper has been redesigned and repositioned as a high-quality Sunday read with strong editorial content that is both informative and entertaining.
"Like our young democracy, it has weathered many storms and this indomitable spirit has remained intact over the decades, through the transition to democracy and the country's highs and lows," says Haffajee.
"We started out life as the only Sunday paper that voiced the issues of black South Africans. Today, we operate in a more crowded Sunday newspaper market but continue to provide thought leadership on matters of national importance, while creating a balanced Sunday read that appeals to the whole family."
Now, in 2012, Haffajee believes that with a dynamic new senior editorial team in place and the introduction of supplements such as the glossy lifestyle insert, i Magazine, and the recently revamped City Press Business, the paper is managing to keep pace with rapidly changing reader demands and trends.
A further part of its repositioning as a quality, authoritative product is the strengthening of its in-house investigative journalism capacity and its online and social media platforms.
"As we move into the next 30 years, we will continue to speak truth to power as a major player on the media landscape and an essential news resource for those in positions of influence and power," concludes Haffajee.
For more, go to www.citypress.co.za.
*Announcement of postponement of publishing date received at 17.09pm on 20 March 2012.
