Nechama Brodie
Lecturer
Nechama Brodie joined Wits Journalism after completing her PhD in 2019. Her doctoral thesis looked at media reporting on femicide in South Africa, and formed the basis of the monograph Femicide in South Africa (Kwela, 2020). Nechama’s current research work is focused on building, integrating and analysing data about fatal violence in South Africa, including developing an open data tool (the Homicide Media Tracker) that will allow inter-disciplinary researchers to gather and build extensive datasets using press and other archives.
Nechama teaches journalism and media theory at honours and masters levels, and supervises a small number of postgraduate research students. She is also the department coordinator for the Safety Matters programme, a collaboration between scholars in South Africa, Norway, the United States and Brazil, on research and education about the safety of journalists.
Nechama has worked as a journalist for over 25 years, as a reporter, radio host, syndication manager, magazine editor and publisher, scriptwriter and TV director, and she continues to write for leading local and international platforms on issues ranging from public health and misinformation to urban history. Between 2013 and 2018 Nechama worked with independent fact-checking organisation Africa Check, and was head of the group’s research and training division TRI Facts.
Education
Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Art, University of the Witwatersrand, 1999
PhD (Journalism and Media Studies), University of the Witwatersrand, 2019
Publications
(2021) ‘Ideal Victims and Familiar Strangers: Non-Intimate Femicide in South African News Media’, African Journalism Studies, 42:3, 82-99, DOI: 10.1080/23743670.2021.1933559
(2022) ‘South Africa’s Own “Delhi Moment”: News Coverage of the Murders of Jyoti Singh and Anene Booysen’ in Intimacy and injury. In the wake of #MeToo in India and South Africa. Edited by Nicky Falkof, Srila Roy and Shilpa Phadke. Manchester University Press. (forthcoming)
(2022) Nechama Brodie, Shanaaz Mathews and Naeemah Abrahams. ‘Every three hours: Femicide in South Africa’ in the Routledge International Handbook on Femicide/Feminicide. Edited by Myrna Dawson and Saide Mobayed. (forthcoming)
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