Quick Facts
Biography
Verashni Pillay (born 11 February 1984), is a South African journalist and news editor. She was the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post South Africa.
Early life
Pillay was born on 11 February 1984 and grew up in Laudium, Pretoria. In 2007 she graduated with an honours degree in journalism from Rhodes University.
Career
Pillay began working as a journalist in October 2009. She worked at News24 and later joined the Mail & Guardian in 2009. Pillay contributed an essay to the collection, Categories of Persons (2013) about popular culture and language. In 2014 she left the Mail & Guardian to work on digital journalism and consultancy. However, in 2015 she returned as the editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian. Pillay was known for creating a strong editorial team and helped the Mail & Guardian grow in circulation.
On 1 November 2016 she left the Mail & Guardian and accepted the position of editor-in-chief at The Huffington Post (South Africa). She resigned on 22 April 2017 after allowing and defending the publication of an allegedly racist and sexist opinion piece.. She was exonerated when the appeals board of the Press Ombud found that she had not breached the Press Code and that the piece was neither discriminatory nor hate speech. .
Pillay once wrote that she wished she didn't have to talk about race, but still sees it as a part of culture that causes discrimination whether people like it or not.