Richard Poplak

Johannesburg

Editor at Large at Daily Maverick

Investigative Journalist at Freelance

Journalist, filmmaker, graphic novelist, doggeralist (so this should rhyme, but nah.) Editor at large @dailymaverick.

Articles

How State Capture has become South Africa’s greatest export

3 weeks ago | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

TRAINSPOTTER Illustrative Image: Former President Jacob Zuma. (Photo: Tebogo Letsie / Gallo Images / City Press) | US President Donald Trump.
SA's Ramaphosa gets braaied and fed to Trump's Maga at the Boerewors Summit

1 month ago | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

TRAINSPOTTER ANALYSIS US President Donald Trump meets South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on 21 May 2025. (Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA-EFE) Cringe diplomacy reigns as timid South African delegation stumbles into Trump’s made-for-TV unreality show. There is a genre of comedy, probably as old as laughter itself, that asks the audience to baste in the sauce of the protagonist’s humiliation. Not being a classicist, I have no idea if...
White Afrikaners Are Trump's Kind of Oppressed Minority

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Richard Poplak

In March, a South African lobbyist for white rights named Ernst Roets appeared across from Tucker Carlson in an episode on Mr. Carlson's YouTube channel called, "Man Charged With Treason for Speaking to Tucker About the Killing of Whites in South Africa." This being the Tucker Carlson Show, at least two pieces of misinformation were shoehorned into the title.
They're not refugees — they’re background extras in Maga’s noisy scam

1 month ago | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

TRAINSPOTTER Illustrative image | Newly arrived Afrikaner 'refugees' in the US.
Canada’s ditches culture wars for hyper-nationalism — thanks to Donald Trump

2 months ago | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

TRAINSPOTTER Like a top-end Tesla, Canadians went from placid to pissed off in 2.4 seconds. Even Trudeau, terminally feckless, seemed to instantly grasp the gravity of the situation. ‘What your country needs is a race war.”This is what Daily Maverick correspondent Kevin Bloom advised a room full of Canadian journalists, about 15 years ago. Don't want to see this? Remove adsHe wasn’t wrong. Front-page that morning was news of a dog that died in a park after ingesting a poisoned sausage.
South Africa: Licking the US Jackboot Is Plain Unsanitary - It's Time for South Africa to Grow Up

Feb 25, 2025 | allafrica.com | Richard Poplak

Inadvertently, Donald Trump has presented South Africa with the greatest opportunity in our 30-year history - the opportunity to stand on our own. For decades, as they grew fatter and smugger, ANC stalwarts would grumble their hoary communisms about the United States and the imperial order, and how neocolonialism was befouling an otherwise glorious National Democratic Revolution. At the same time, the country clicked in tamely with the neoliberal order.
Opinion: Trump’s South Africa executive order shows that the age of racial grievance-settling has only just begun

Feb 12, 2025 | theglobeandmail.com | Richard Poplak
Licking the US jackboot is plain unsanitary; it’s time for SA to grow up

Feb 11, 2025 | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

TRAINSPOTTER Inadvertently, Donald Trump has presented South Africa with the greatest opportunity in our 30-year history – the opportunity to stand on our own. For decades, as they grew fatter and smugger, ANC stalwarts would grumble their hoary communisms about the United States and the imperial order, and how neocolonialism was befouling an otherwise glorious National Democratic Revolution. At the same time, the country clicked in tamely with the neoliberal order.
Is it any wonder that the holes of the Witwatersrand still echo with death?

Jan 20, 2025 | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

MINING EDITORIAL Of the many sins perpetuated by the ANC, this may be the worst — the refusal to innovate a new approach to the resource sector, a gleeful willingness to allow corpses of the poor to rot in mine shafts, and a gangland approach to regional deal-making. South African mining is a death cult. Between the years 1912 and 1994, more than 69,000 people lost their lives in mining-related accidents in South Africa, many of them on the Witwatersrand goldfields.
Notes on the underground — where the most desperate scavenge for gold

Jan 16, 2025 | dailymaverick.co.za | Richard Poplak

INTERVIEW With ghastly stories emerging about cannibalism and mass death underground, it was time to reconnect with the anthropology professor and filmmaker Rosalind Morris, who remains perhaps the best-qualified person to speak on these matters. The recent interview, conducted over the phone, has been edited for clarity and length. In 2021, a professor of anthropology named Rosalind Morris released a film called We are Zama Zama.

Contact details

Emails

[email protected]

Socials & Sites

Try JournoFinder For Free

Search and contact over 1M+ journalist profiles, browse 100M+ articles, and unlock powerful PR tools.

Start Your 7-Day Free Trial →

Coverage map

X (formerly Twitter)

Followers: 34K
Tweets: 13K
DMs Open: No

Richard Poplak @Poplak

11 Jun 25

Build the wall.

Toronto Star @TorontoStar

Canadian doctors and scientists say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s firing of an immunization advisory committee south of the border is worrisome. https://t.co/PzT2kmW4dy

Richard Poplak @Poplak

6 Jun 25

Relax. Kitty Kat Man is on it.