Janine Lazarus: the story that took its toll

Media consultant Janine Lazarus has just published a book that was inspired by her experience as a Sunday Times journalist covering a serial killer who operated in Norwood, the suburb in which she lived. The SA Jewish Report speaks to her.

Give us the background to this book.

The thread throughout the book is my 27-year link with Norwood serial killer Kobus Geldenhuys. But it’s much more than that. It deals with a volatile South Africa in transition, the hot metal newsrooms of yore, and the inevitable racism in news reportage. A central theme is also my dance with the dark, and some of the sinister and sensational stories I covered during the heydays of the early 1990s.

How was your life impacted by the Norwood serial killer?

It was without doubt this story that made my name as a crime reporter. To get this close to a serial killer was the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. Are people born to become killers, or does their environment mould them into the monsters they become? But what I grapple with most of all is that I believe we’re all capable of going over the edge. Ordinary people can commit extraordinary acts of violence.

What inspired you to write this book now?

Everyone has a book within them. I’ve wanted to try my hand at writing a book for a long time. Without giving the game away, an approach by a television production company on the back of the killer’s parole application gave me pause for thought. My head is still spinning around the fact that a television series is in preproduction on my first book, or even that a radio station wants to do a serial podcast on it. It feels surreal.

You were a crime reporter, so this was one of many crime stories you told. Why does it still haunt you?

Because I got up real close and personal with a man who raped and killed several women. I looked into his eyes just after he was sentenced to death. I crossed the line. I had broken a quintessential credo of journalism to stay out of the story. But in those days, the story was everything. Each investigation devoured me and spat me out, and I just rolled onto the next one. Landing headlines is what defined me.

Describe the killer you met then?

Vanilla plain and awkwardly ordinary. But then, serial killers are never the vengeful behemoths we conjure up in our nightmares. He seemed tired. In fact, when the police finally arrested him, he said as much. But what shook me to the core was that I unearthed a tarnished shard of humanity in his twisted soul. No-one in my newsroom could ever understand how this could be possible. After all, the rapist/killer had cut a swathe of terror through my neighbourhood and destroyed families.

What do you think of this man now?

That would be giving the game away. It’s central to my book. What I can say is that as much as I’ve borne witness to man’s inhumanity to man, I still believe intrinsically that there’s good even in the worst of people. I’m a deep empath, which for a crime reporter is an obvious flaw.

Norwood is traditionally where many young Jewish people live. Describe how it was then.

It was where I lived and loved. Restaurant owners knew my name and what my favourite meal was. Coffee shops knew how I liked my fix, and many first dates were shared over a glass or two of wine. Norwood was trendy, upbeat, and had a heady kind of rhythm. And it was safe. I would walk home down Grant Avenue from a late-night spot without a care in the world. It was my medinah (land).

During the killer’s reign of terror, it became like a ghost town. Razor wire and burglar bars, so uncommon to the neighbourhood, became permanent fixtures. Single women moved out en masse.

In terms of being a crime reporter, did this story change how you felt about what you did?

It defined me. Cracking the front page week after week was the stuff of pure adrenalin. I had set the bar high. It was a difficult act to follow. And, in spite of how close I had come to evil, I never slammed on the brakes. I kept chasing the headlines.

What was it about crime that you found fascinating?

Most people I know have this morbid fascination with crime. I’ve read so much about how people delve into this genre, perhaps as some form of odd escape or an interest in good versus evil. Perhaps it makes them feel lucky not to have become one of the statistics.

There was a stage during my news reporting life when I considered studying criminology part time. I just don’t think I’m clever enough.

Looking at the crime situation today, would you say it’s worse or better?

Crime is crime. Victims are victims. There’s no better or worse. For those left behind, each tragedy leaves an overarching void that can never be breached. What I do know is that the justice system is deeply flawed, our police services are over-stretched and lacking, and our prisons are bursting at the seams. It seems too easy to get away with violent crime.

You now run a successful media consultancy. What made you decide to leave your life as a journalist?

Seven cameramen died in the space of 16 months before our first democratic elections. One of them was The Star’s chief photographer, Ken Oosterbroek. Then, Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Kevin Carter took his own life. His iconic photograph of the vulture eyeing a starving child in the Sudan is seared into my brain forever. These were my colleagues, my friends. I had worked with them on so many stories. The grief in our newsroom was palpable.

I also didn’t want to become a jaded old hack. I still wanted to delight in the rainbows across the skies after a Highveld thunderstorm, and in the entirely enchanting sound of a child’s laughter. I needed to turn my back on news. It was the hardest decision I have ever made.

Why did you choose media consulting as your second career?

I’d dabbled in lecturing journalism. I worked as Johannesburg bureau chief on a women’s magazine. I landed my own talk show, albeit at the bum end of the week. It was still my spot.

But it was three abysmal months in a stereotypical public relations agency that was the last straw. I couldn’t stomach the candy floss in a world which was hardly the stuff of butterflies and sunshine.

When the agency made me its so-called head of media, I thought, “Stuff it. I can do this on my own. I can wear two hats quite comfortably: the client’s and as a former news hack.” It’s an insight that has served me well.

Do you ever miss being a reporter or working on a newspaper? If so, what do you miss?

With every cell in my being. It was an adrenalin rush. No day was ever the same. I watch breaking news now and rail loudly against the television or radio reporter for not asking obvious questions. And I know exactly what stories in the news would have had my name all over them. I’ve never been in short supply of chutzpah, but covering violent crime takes guts and I’m not sure I have that edge anymore.

Any thoughts on another book? If so, what would it be about?

Eish! This one was akin to giving birth (or so I’m told since I don’t have a child of my own). It literally was birthing a book. Blood, sweat, and tears. I sobbed at my keyboard, I fought to find the right words, and I ploughed through acres of research. I cried when I finally hit the send button on my manuscript. And I wished with all my heart that my beloved late parents could be part of this.

Could I do it again? Perhaps. But if there’s a next time, maybe I’ll do something on my line of work right now. So many brands are ignorant when it comes to dealing with the media.

Maybe I’ll call it, “How not to put your foot in it.”