Carol Paton

Carol Paton has worked as a political writer for the Business Day, Financial Mail and Sunday Times. She held the best job in SA journalism: Writer at Large on the business daily, Business Day where she was in the enviable position of having time and space to write on the big political and economic issues of the day. Recently she has been appointed Deputy Editor at Business Day.

Carol has a special interest in the interplay between politics and the economy and has written extensively on black economic empowerment, debates on economic transformation, affirmative action and employment equity, labour and industrial relations and state-owned companies. In political analysis her interest has centred on understanding the ANC, its internal dynamics, internal policy debates, the relationship between party and state and the manifestations of this in the party’s drive to transform the apartheid state and foster the creation of a new elite.

She has in the past won several journalism awards including: Standard Bank Sikuvile Award for Best Opinion Writer in 2012; the Citi Journalistic Excellence Award in 2009; the Sanlam journalism award in 2005 for writing on Industries and Economy; an award from the US Embassy for an expose of cronyism and corruption in municipalities; and a fellowship from the Open Soceity (SA) which resulted in an acclaimed expose on the corrupting relationship between business and politics in the ANC. Carol also won the Sanlam 2015 Best Print Financial Journalist award.