By Malebo Pheme
Olorato Mongale completed her Bachelor of Journalism degree at Rhodes University in 2016. A year later, she was working for TimesLive as a video journalist. One of the stories Olorato Mongale covered in 2017 was the high-profile case of Karabo Mokoena, a young Soweto woman murdered by her boyfriend. In a tragic twist, Mongale herself was murdered on Sunday, 25 May 2025, just a few kilometres from where Mokoena was found.
Mongale had worked briefly as a multimedia journalist at TimesLIVE. According to family spokesperson Criselda Kananda, she left as she was disillusioned by “the horrible stories” she covered. This year, Mongale was studying for a Master’s degree in ICT Policy and Regulation at Wits University.
Kananda said: “For her it was like, ‘No I don’t want to live a life where I would keep chasing horrible stories’, she wanted to influence the reporting of the horrible stories, and help shape the policies behind the headlines, and we were robbed of that.”
You can watch the video made by Olorato Mongale about the murder of a young woman in Johannesburg in 2017.
You can read the story about Mongale’s murder.
