The upcoming episode of Carte Blanche on M-Net (DStv 101) is set to be an emotional tribute to the late Derek Watts, who passed away on Tuesday morning after battling skin cancer. The hour-long show, airing this Sunday evening at 19:00, will honor his legacy and contributions.
This special episode of Carte Blanche will serve as a heartfelt tribute to Derek Watts, a beloved figure in South African television, highlighting his contributions, values, and the impact he had on fellow journalists and the industry as a whole.
Derek Watts’ former colleagues, Devi Sankaree Govender and Ruda Landman, longtime companions in the Carte Blanche studio, are anticipated to make a return for this heartfelt tribute. The Combined Artistic Productions swiftly reworked the scheduled episode to create a special program dedicated to Watts.
John Webb, the executive producer of Carte Blanche, acknowledges the challenge of encapsulating Watts’ immense impact in just an hour. He expressed the team’s determination to do justice to his memory within the allotted time.
Derek Watts Hated Doing Confrontational Interviews
Devi Sankaree Govender, reflecting on her time with Derek Watts, reveals a lesser-known aspect of his personality – his hatred to confrontational interviews. She disclosed to News24 that Derek Watts had an inherent discomfort with such situations, a revelation that surprised her due to her admiration for him since her youth.
“I never would have guessed that. I joined Carte Blanche in 2002, and I just had this leaning towards catching the crooks and the bad guys, and it was just something that I loved doing.
“It didn’t take Derek long before he came up to me the one day and he said: ‘I’m so happy that you do these stories and you do it so well because it means I don’t really have to do it because I don’t like confronting people – it makes me feel awkward.”
“The thing with Derek is that he was just genuinely such a nice guy. He was the real deal. He actually felt bad for the ‘skelms’. He always remarked that he just really found it difficult. He did ask the tough questions in his own way, and he was always able to get answers out of people in a very gentle, almost kind, kind of way.”
“He never liked the confrontations, and in a way, we bonded over my confrontations because he was just so grateful and always acknowledged it when I did great work, which I appreciated as a young journalist just starting out.”
“I got to work with my television icon – one of the people along with Ruda Landman and Manu Padayachee, so I know I was the lucky one.”
To celebrate Derek’s legacy, kykNET (DStv 144) will rebroadcast a sit-down interview with Watts on Thursday as part of Hannes Aan Huis at 17:30.