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Journalism is a wrap for driven Gebhardt

Octavia Tsibes



It’s said that journalism is a calling and this week’s community profile is a testament to this.

Although growing up far removed from newsrooms, Erica Gebhardt eventually answered her calling, and has been richly rewarded with successful ventures across various media.

After completing high school in Grahamstown, Gebhardt moved to Cape Town where she enrolled at a television school, and after two years she moved to Namibia.

Her journalistic journey started by chance, when she found a holiday a job at a local newspaper. Gebhardt has always been interested in the spoken word, art and theatre, with journalism being the last thing on her mind.

“At some point I wanted to become a lawyer,” she says.

Over the years she has grown in the media industry, after working for eight years as a journalist on different beats at various local newspapers.

Today Gebhardt is the news editor, presenter and producer of a news discussion programme called ‘It’s a Wrap’ on One Africa Television, which has quickly garnered a cult following, thanks to her eloquent, yet emphatic take on current events.

Gebhardt is very passionate about her profession and believes she can make a contribution to her country and its various communities by telling it like it is and offering people a platform to tell their stories.

“My achievement over the past 18 years in the industry is that whatever I put my heart and mind to, I’ve managed to make a success of,” she said.

“It’s a Wrap aims to draw a younger audience - 16 to 35 - who are aware of what is happening around them. At 16, I was not really interested in politics and what was happening around me, and now as an adult, I wish I was exposed to a lot more.”

Gebhardt started as a broadcast journalist at One Africa in 2015 and over the years moved into editing news.

When One Africa rebranded and pushed for more relevancy, she came up with the idea for It’s a Wrap.