Chris Bishop, the Managing Editor of FORBES AFRICA, calls on those who want to be mentored by him to come forward.
The mentee challenge comes after Bishop was on CNBC Africa’s new show The Mentorship Challenge with Marc Wainer.
Bishop has over 20 years of experience in journalism and comes from a lineage of journalists.
“My father gave me some unintended mentoring when I was young. First thing in the morning, when he drove me to school, he would eagerly shake his hands as he couldn’t wait to get to work,” says Bishop.
Having learnt from his father and work mentor John Spavin who contributed greatly towards his career, Bishop is dedicating 30 hours of his time to pass the baton to the willing participants, on his lessons.
“When I was a young journalist a lot of the senior journalist wouldn’t help you. They would rather cut their arm off than help you because they felt that you ‘were coming here to take my job, you are competition for me, so rather go and sort yourself out’… So I swore that when I get to the other side of the fence I’m not going to be like them,” he says.
“I always say to my young journalists, if you are lucky you will meet someone to help you. If you are really lucky you will meet three people to help you by the age of 30,” says Bishop.
On the show, Bishop speaks about the freedom of the press in South Africa.
“I think in this in this country it is still fairly robust and still fairly much alive. And every day that we go to work we must make sure that is the case. I have worked in 10 to 15 countries across the continent where press freedom is virtually non–existent. Here, if I am persistent, I can still get the health minister, I can still get the minister of trade and industry, to front up, give me an interview and answer the questions that we have,” he says.
“I can still go and doorstep somebody, no policeman is going to hit me around the head for doing it. That is the sort of freedom we have. You may call the radio station and say all sort of nonsense about the president and nobody is going to follow you home, nobody is going to threaten your children or something.”
Even with all his years of experience in journalism, Bishop still looks forward to interviewing Vladimir Putin.
“I know it seems like a hard one, but he always seems like the heart of darkness and everyone seems terrified of him, but I would like to know what makes him tick and look him in the eye,” he says.
To register as a mentee go to The Mentorship Challenge