With a résumé that also includes SA’s favourite breakfast show, Expresso Morning Show, rising SA media star, Zahrah Isaacs-Robinson is truly making a name for herself in the industry.

BORN TO RISE

Zahrah was born and bred in Goodwood, Cape Town. With a natural inclination for school subjects such as drama and debating, she doesn’t shy away from describing her younger self as: ‘the child whom adults liked, but whom all the other kids hated! I thought I could do anything and everything.’ After matric, Zahrah enrolled at the University of the Western Cape to study law, but in her second year realised that it wasn’t for her. She then started applying for bursaries and volunteered at radio stations, one of them being local Islamic radio station Voice of the Cape, where she became the drive-time show producer. However, she was itching to grace the screens of South African TVs. This dream became more attainable when she made the move from radio to TV production the following year. Expresso was looking for a news and entertainment producer, and Zahrah grabbed the opportunity. ‘I went for the interview and had almost given up hope when I didn’t hear back from them after three weeks. But then I got the news that I was hired – I was ecstatic!’

DAILY GRIND

Many people don’t realise how much work goes into putting a news show together. ‘It’s honestly a 24-hour job. Due to it being a live show, you really need to have your finger on the pulse and be ready for anything. When Ahmed Kathrada passed away last year, the news broke in the early hours of the morning, and I had to pull
over the car en route to work to change the script for that morning’s show,’ she reveals. ‘People only see about three minutes of a story on screen, but behind the scenes, there is a producer setting it up, a crew going out to shoot it and an editor stitching it all together.’ In the span of a year, Zahrah moved up to field presenter.  

Read the full interview with Zahrah in your July issue of ClubX.