Deon du Plessis, larger than life and loved by all

The late Deon du Plessis, founder and publisher of South African tabloid newspaper the Daily Sun.

He was larger than life, rambunctious and generous - a genius newspaper man with ink in his veins, feared and fearless but, above all, the visionary who started the tabloid newspaper industry in this country when he opened the Daily Sun nine years ago.

Died this weekend

Tragically Du Plessis, who died this weekend at the age of 59 in his home in Johannesburg, was about to take three months' sabbatical.

"I have never had a holiday like this before... so actually I have no idea what I'll do with it," he told his blog's email subscribers (myself included) last Friday. "I think I should prepare myself for the dreaded bouncing ball... Without even being planned, one thing will follow another. I will probably set about bringing my spoken Portuguese lessons up to speed using one-on-one lessons I have never had time for. Then I will go to Portugal... I mean: why not?

"From there I will follow the footsteps and hoofsteps of the Duke of Wellington as he kicked the French out of Portugal in the early 1800s. That, I prophesy, will lead me to the bigger battlefields of the same Peninsular campaign in Spain... Then I will probably go to Cadiz because it sounds romantic and I want to hear the Atlantic crashing on the sea-walls..."

Indelible mark on SA's media industry

Front cover of the Daily Sun today, Monday, 12 September 2011, with news of Du Plessis's death.

click to enlarge

Du Plessis made an indelible mark on South Africa's media industry in a distinguished career that saw him become deputy editor of both the Cape Argus and the Sowetan, editor of the Pretoria News and managing director of Independent Newspapers Gauteng.

He was also a legendary foreign correspondent, covering Africa for the Argus group in the company's heyday.

Vrye Weekblad founder and author Max du Preez told Bizcommunity: "I met Deon in Angola in 1978. We were both covering the war. I didn't know who he was and only after he spoke and I thought I recognised his accent did I introduce myself. I told him I thought he was Russian and he found that hilarious, going into a very insightful comparison between the mentalities of Russians and Afrikaner nationalists.

"Talent to always see beyond the obvious"

"He had a talent to always see beyond the obvious, to notice stuff other journalists never pick up on," says Du Preez. "He was very supportive when I launched Vrye Weekblad in the late 1980s but was clear in his advice. 'Do it quickly and get out, then go and make some money - there's nothing as pathetic as a destitute old hack,' he said. Deon was the most entertaining company one could ever ask for."

A tale often told is that Du Plessis - together with market researcher Jos Kuper - crunched the numbers and came up with the idea of the Daily Sun while they were at Independent Newspapers. The firm failed to see the value in it so the two took it to Media24.

The rest is publishing history. Within five years, the paper that dishes up a skilfully edited daily mix of information and entertainment had become the biggest paper in the country - hitting a high of 500 000 sales before beginning to fall back during the worldwide recession. While the paper's readership as measured by AMPS is more than 4.6 million readers, its ABC circulation was at 381 000 in the second quarter of this year.

Kuper, an independent researcher and a director of FutureFact, which does the market research for the Daily Sun, says:

"A particular kind of genius"

"This was a man who brought a particular kind of genius to the newspaper world. He had idiosyncratic views and yet a complete understanding of the need to get deep into the things that make his readers sing, laugh and cry. He understood how to reflect these, and how to address their issues. He created a newspaper that sees hundreds of people come to talk in person to the Daily Sun as it is their friend that helps them to manage and take control of their lives.

"He was a brave change-maker, believing in a market at a time that not many others did. He was a good friend and colleague and a man who respected and loved his family with a deep passion."

Du Plessis made a deep impression upon the many people with whom he worked - as a consummate journalist and a party animal.

Chris Whitfield, head of Independent Newspapers in the Western Cape, was a reporter at the Sunday Tribune when Du Plessis was an assistant editor at the paper and worked with him again when Whitfield was the deputy editor of The Sunday Independent and Du Plessis was head of Independent Newspapers Gauteng.

"Larger than life"

"Deon was one of the few people who genuinely deserved being described as larger than life," says Whitfield. "He was not one for small measures: he drove the biggest cars, lived in the biggest house (with the biggest TV screen I had ever seen), hired the biggest bodyguards (we never really worked out why they were required but they were always around in those days), threw the biggest parties and was a big man himself.

"He was also one for big ideas, one of which gave rise to the Daily Sun... By contrast he was also thoughtful, caring and could write beautifully. He is a great loss to journalism."

The Financial Times' Siobhan Cassidy, who worked with Du Plessis at the Pretoria News and then again at The Star and The Sunday Independent, says: "Deon was a bright, blazing light. He was so deeply passionate about everything, an infectious and inspiring passion. He made so many of us really stretch higher and further."

"Inspired real loyalty"

And Bloomberg reporter Robert Brand says: "He often acted the buffoon and sometimes did crazy things but he was really a very smart editor who inspired real loyalty among his staff.

"He was a very sociable person and would invite the lowliest reporter to his house in Houghton for legendary parties. I left the Pretoria News shortly after he took over in 1993 to backpack through Europe and perhaps find a job in London. Two months into my travels, I unexpectedly received a phone call one morning at the backpackers' hostel I was staying at in London.

"It was Deon - how he had tracked me down, I don't know. 'Brand,' he said in his gruff way, 'It's time to come back.'... It was difficult to say no to Deon. As a result, I was involved in covering the story of a lifetime and I will be forever in his debt."

Humble about his achievements

Du Plessis was generous with his knowledge, although he did not suffer fools. He was also incredibly humble about his achievements.

As then acting director of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ), veteran freelance journalist Raymond Joseph recalls taking a group of young journalists doing a course at the institute last year to the Daily Sun for a showaround.

"I expected some underling to handle it, say a few words and then send us on our way," says Joseph. "To my surprise, Deon himself pitched up to talk to them about the paper - and for more than an hour he spoke with genuine passion about the Daily Sun and its target reader, the man in the blue overall, passing on valuable journalism lessons to the youngsters, who hung on his every word.

"He was quite self-deprecating"

"I had heard him on this subject before but never with such clarity and I, for one, finally truly understood why the paper was such a runaway success. Yet, when I asked a leading question referring to his vision - and his hands-on role in its success - he was quite self-deprecating, playing his part down.

"It was left to me, later, to tell them about Deon, a bull of a man and the consumate journalist, an old-fashioned editor who got his hands dirty and was always in the trenches when the real work was being done. Deon worked hard and, when the work was done, he played equally hard. A true character of South African journalism, he will be sorely missed. But his legacy as the father of red tops in this country lives on."

Deon du Plessis, the legendary newsman, is survived by his wife Vanessa, daughter Daniella and two grandchildren. Bizcommunity.com extends condolences to family, friends and colleagues.

For more:

• Daily Sun: Deon du Plessis' blog
  
• IOL: Du Plessis mourned by editors, 11 September 2011
  
• Bizcommunity: The market research behind the 'SunPower', by Gill Moodie, November 2010
  
• Bizcommunity: Why we should celebrate our wacky tabloids, by Gill Moodie, September 2010
  
• Bizcommunity: Famous in the townships; invisible in the suburbs, by Gill Moodie, September 2010
  
• Bizcommunity: Why we should celebrate our wacky tabloids by Gill Moodie, September 2011

See also:

• Daily Sun: Daily Sun publisher dies
  
• Google News Search: Deon du Plessis
  
• Twitter Search: "Deon du Plessis" OR deonduplessis