About

Elna is a freelance journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa, who always has time to hear a really good story.

As a journalist, she works in writing and audio, across long-form and shorter news articles. Her work regularly appears in the likes of Mail & Guardian, Daily Maverick, Deutsche Welle, the BBC, and PRX's The World.

Her work spans a range of topics from business to science and health, with a particular interest in mental health and human rights. She is particularly interested in how personal stories reflect wider circumstances.

Elna has also worked in the world of podcasting for over five years. She helps organisations and institutions strategise and create podcasts on a range of topics. For instance, she has been the lead producer for the podcast of a global human rights organisation, host of an Africa-wide show for healthcare workers and worked with the Economist's The Intelligence team on their daily shows.

Elna was honoured by her alma mater with a JMS50 Alumni Award and was the MPIWG Journalist-in-Residence in 2023. She is the founder of Podmeet, a networking and support project for the podcasting industry in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Her work has been nominated for Liberty Radio Awards several times and she won the 2018 Discovery Health Journalism Award for Best Radio Journalism. 

She holds a BJourn (cum laude) degree from Rhodes University specialising in radio and audio. She previously worked as a content producer at the Wits Radio Academy.