A well-known Cape Town journalist has died in a car accident.
Tanya Menges was on her way to cover a story in Vermaaklikheid near Riversdal when she apparently lost control of her car on a gravel road.
Tanya was a court reporter for the Afrikaans tabloid, Die Son.
Riversdal police contacted the newspaper just after 2pm on Wednesday.
Tanya’s colleagues expressed shock at her sudden passing.
The journalist was formerly married to Werner Menges.
According to Die Son, Tanya studied in Pretoria and moved to Windhoek in the early 1990s where she worked at the Republikein.
She was news editor at the Windhoek Advertiser and later appointed as the head of the Media Institute of Southern Africa branch in Namibia.
She joined Die Son in 2006.
Last year, Tanya was named as the Deon du Plessis Tabloid Journalist of the Year in the Legends media awards at Media24.
Die Son’s news editor Neil Scott on Thursday described Tanya as a “brilliant reporter” who will be sorely missed in his newsroom.
Die Son’s editor, Andrew Koopman, says Menges was a fearless journalist.
“Everyone at the high court knew her and she had a fantastic relationship with the legal fraternity, court orderlies and even the accused,” he says.
“Tanya received many death threats when
covering major court cases, but she was fearless and kept on writing without favour.”