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Until she was enticed home recently to host eNCA’s Tonight with Jane Dutton, she had worked for 20 years all over the world for leading TV news stations such as Al Jazeera, CNN and the BBC.
Hosting a primetime news show with your own name emblazoned across it has to be the ultimate in TV anchoring, so it’s no wonder that Dutton’s occupying one of the hottest seats in South Africa.
Four days a week, from 8pm to 9.30pm, the dynamo with a quicksilver mind gets into the heads of newsmakers, tackles controversial issues and accesses international stories that are making headlines.
No longer do we have to switch to CNN and BBC to view the latter – Dutton’s worn their T-shirts and knows what switches us on.
She left Al Jazeera at the end of June and had only been here for four days when she interviewed President Cyril Ramaphosa for 90 minutes during her first show.
It was “quite a brutal task”, and Dutton is pleased that he expressed emotion about the Marikana massacre “because he’s seldom emotional”.
She was employed to ask the tough questions, “so you can’t just serenade people. I need to get answers without being rude,” she says.
She points out that the main reason people allow themselves to be interviewed “is to get their message across, but you can’t let them grandstand”.
After two decades in front of the camera, she’s not nervous about tackling leading personalities, “but there’s obviously a bit of tension beforehand”.
One of her most difficult subjects was former British prime minister Tony Blair, who, in spite of being the UN envoy for Middle East peace as a mediator in the Palestine-Israel conflict, had not set a foot in Gaza months after his appointment.
Dutton wanted to know why, but he kept eluding her questions until she finally got her answer.
That’s the essential Dutton – persistent, polite, pertinent.
Another tough interview was with the president of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, who kept Dutton and her producer waiting for eight hours in blistering heat.
“I was dripping with sweat by the time we went in and he denounced most of my questions as lies,” says Dutton.
“It was petrifying. I thought we were going to be shot when our car was stopped as we were leaving.”
For 13 years, she was a news anchor for Al Jazeera English, which is noted for its different news angles and for telling stories that are not told by others.
Then she was headhunted by eNCA.
Based at Al Jazeera’s main broadcast centre in Doha, Qatar, she interviewed world leaders, criminals, politicians and change makers.
“News anchors would go on location when I started at Al Jazeera, and I was in Egypt at Tahrir Square when the [Arab Spring] revolution started,” recalls Dutton.
“Our hotel was surrounded by a crowd yelling that, if we went on broadcasting from the balcony, I’d be shot.”
Others made slitting gestures across their throats.
This mother of twin girls, aged seven, matriculated from St Mary’s School in Waverley, Johannesburg, and changed her mind three times about what she would study at university.
“I got bored easily,” she explains.
She began her career at SABC TV, worked for it in London, and then came back home to e.tv, where CNN was doing training.
“I wrote to the head of CNN and demanded a job as an anchor. When we met, he said he couldn’t believe how cheeky I was.”
She eventually achieved her ambition, albeit initially as a travel show host, which she loved. From then on, the TV shows she presented and anchored read like a who’s who.
She learnt how to research for and script current affairs shows, and gained a reputation for coaxing responses from reluctant interviewees, as well as for her hard-hitting approach coupled with tactical questioning.
She smiles a lot, both on and off TV, exuding warmth, energy and confidence. Although she’s only been on eNCA for just over a month when we meet, she’s recognised by many in our restaurant.
It’s the Dutton Effect – one that had an impact on former president Nelson Mandela. She had only met him once before she was sent to cover his meeting with then French president François Mitterrand.
He was standing at the top of stately stairs, waiting for Mandela when the latter, on passing Dutton, greeted her warmly: “Hello, Jane.”
She’s thrilled to be back in the country, but is stunned by the negativity, racism and hatred expressed on Twitter: “Reading it, you’d think there’s no hope for this country.”
She balances that by recognising the “warmth, fun, generosity and kindness of most people in this beautiful country”.
Mentor: I had many, but my parents were first – their belief in me gave me huge confidence.
Favourite books: AS Byatt’s Possession and The Magus by John Fowles.
Wow! moment: Nelson Mandela greeting me after we’d only met once.
Life lesson: Hang back sometimes – if you give nasty people enough rope, they hang themselves.
