The publication began as the Weekly Mail, an alternative newspaper by a group of journalists in 1985 after the closure of two leading liberal newspapers, The Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Express. Weekly Mail was one of the first newspapers to use Apple Mac desktop publishing. The Weekly Mail criticised the government and its apartheid policies, which led to the banning of the paper in 1988 by then State President P. W. Botha. The paper was renamed the Weekly Mail & Guardian from 30 July 1993. The London-based Guardian Media Group, the publisher of The Guardian, became the majority shareholder of the print edition in 1995, and the name was changed to Mail & Guardian. In 2002, 87.5% of the company was sold to the Newtrust Company Botswana Limited, which was owned by Trevor Ncube, a Zimbabwean publisher and entrepreneur. Ncube took over as the CEO of the company. In 2006 MD Africa became the Mail & Guardian's national distributor. The change resulted in good circulation growth, despite difficult market conditions. In 2013 the newspaper achieved a record period with 51,551 copies circulated. MDA distributes a number of publications including Noseweek and Destiny magazine. However, by the first quarter of 2015, distribution had collapsed to 30,714. In 2017, Media Development Investment Fund, a New York-based not-for-profit investment fund, announced that it had acquired a majority stake in the Mail & Guardian. The restructured ownership saw the CEO, Hoosain Karjieker, acquire a minority stake in the business as part of a Black Economic Empowerment transaction. The former majority shareholder, Trevor Ncube, was disposed of his equity interest.
The ''Mail & Guardian Online''
In 1994, the Mail & Guardian Online was launched in conjunction with Media24, becoming the first internet news publication in Africa. It has grown into its own daily news operation with a number of writers, multimedia producers, sub-editors and more. It is run out of the Mail & Guardian offices in Rosebank, Johannesburg. The site focuses on local, international and African hard news, sport and business. The website began its life as the Electronic Mail & Guardian, which was initially an e-mail subscription service that allowed readers living outside South Africa to receive Mail & Guardian newspaper stories before they reached newspaper subscribers. Soon after, the service expanded into a searchable online archive, published in partnership with Sangonet, the country's oldest internet service provider. A website was added, which in turn progressed from producing a weekly mirror of the printed newspaper to generating its own daily news. The Mail & Guardian Online was jointly owned by internet service provider MWEB and publishing company M&G Media until M&G Media purchased 100% of the operation in 2008. It has interactive news photo galleries, discussion forums and special reports on subjects such as Zimbabwe, HIV and South African PresidentJacob Zuma. It also features regular cartoons by South African political cartoonist Carlos. The newspaper's headquarters are in Rosebank, Johannesburg, with a smaller bureau in Cape Town. The editor-in-chief is Khadija Patel and the CEO is Hoosain Karjieker. M&G Media runs several other sites including:
Thought Leader — an editorial group blog of commentary and analysis
