- Conviction.co.za first anniversary celebrates a platform born from facing retrenchment and personal courage.
- Opinion articles by esteemed writers and stories like Mary Rahube’s highlight legal injustice and human experience.
- From zero to nearly 100 000 monthly page impressions, Conviction.co.za has become a leading people-centred legal newsroom.
When Conviction.co.za went live on 1 December 2024, I was not confident. I was afraid. Not the loud kind of fear with sirens and flashing lights, but the quiet fear that settles in your stomach when you step into the unknown without a net.
I had no idea if anyone would read it or if anyone would care. I had no idea if the platform would last. All I knew was that I could no longer ignore what I saw every day. I had been a journalist for almost three decades, and even with that experience, starting Conviction.co.za felt like stepping off a cliff. This Conviction.co.za first anniversary reminds me how far we have come from that first leap.
The idea for Conviction.co.za lingered long before the website existed. One story in particular would not leave me alone. Mary Rahube spent decades in her home in Mabopane, only to discover that apartheid-era laws had kept her name off the title deed simply because she was a woman. Her fight was not just a legal battle but a wound the law had let fester. It taught me something troubling. The law can sound clear in judgments, while people struggle in real life.
That story opened more questions. Why does legal reporting strip people out of their own stories so often? Why are judgments reduced to technical language when families live with the fallout for years? Why is the law written as if it belongs only to insiders when it governs everyone’s lives? Conviction.co.za was created to live in that space, the gap between courtrooms and kitchens, between rights on paper and pain in practice.
When facing retrenchment forced a decision
Life did not wait for me to be ready. While facing retrenchment for the third time in three years, I chose voluntary retrenchment, not as surrender but as a turning point. Retrenchment corners you and expects you to beg for work. I knew I could not do that again, not at my then-employer and not anywhere else.
Looking for another newsroom job would have meant moving rooms in the same crumbling house, hoping for a miracle. Every newsroom was cutting staff, and job security had become a myth. So instead, I built my own space. Over almost three decades, I had written on just about everything, edited publications at the highest level, and seen it all. In essence, I knew what had to be done.
Conviction.co.za was born not from comfort but from uncertainty, from anger and exhaustion, from a quiet promise to build something instead of pleading for it. I wanted a platform that saw people as more than case numbers, a place where the law could be explained in everyday words, where emotion was not carved out of the story, and where legal outcomes were treated as life outcomes because, for ordinary people, they always are. Conviction.co.za became my way of saying I see you. Your story matters. You are not invisible.
A year of learning that purpose changes everything
Running an independent platform is not glamorous. It is quiet and mostly lonely work. Late nights, no guarantees, publishing with no idea where the next support will come from. Some days it felt like shouting into the wind.
But then messages arrived. From someone who finally understood a court ruling, from a reader who saw their own life reflected, from a student who learned something new. Next came a stranger who just said thank you for telling this story. Those messages kept me going when nothing else did. Conviction.co.za was never meant to be perfect. Only to be present.
This year has shown that justice in South Africa is not only decided in courtrooms. It is decided in schools without security, in clinics that run out of medicine, in police stations where urgency is missing, in homes with no options. The law may promise equality, but daily life tells a different story. Conviction.co.za stands in that gap between what is written and what is lived.
Our opinion articles, contributed by esteemed writers, are among the most read on Conviction.co.za and across media platforms today. They bring perspective, challenge assumptions, and keep readers connected to the human side of law and justice.
To grow from zero to almost 100 000 page impressions a month is proof that people want meaning. There is space for journalism that refuses to talk down to its audience. That human stories still matter.
A promise for the next year
As Conviction.co.za begins its second year, I cannot promise perfection, only persistence. I will keep telling stories that make people uncomfortable when silence is cheaper than justice. I will keep explaining the law so it can be used, not admired.
I will keep putting ordinary people at the centre of systems that were not built for them. And I will keep building Conviction.co.za even when it is hard, lonely, or feels impossible.
Conviction.co.za was never just a platform. It is what happens when disappointment refuses to turn to bitterness. It is what happens when fear decides to build instead of retreat. It is what happens when losing a job becomes finding a purpose.
The covers came off on 1 December 2024 quietly, with no fanfare and no guarantees, just a choice to start. If you are reading this at your own edge, uncertain, tired, or afraid, this is your reminder. Sometimes what breaks you is the very thing that sets you free.
Conviction.co.za is one year old today. And this is only the beginning. So, help me God.
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