About Danielle Weakley
I’ve spent my career asking one question: what’s the story? I’m Danielle Weakley, an editor, writer and editorial strategist with three decades of experience finding the stories that make people stop, read, watch, listen and, ahem, care.
I spent much of my career inside magazines - as Editor-in-Chief of Women’s Health and Grazia South Africa amongst others, where I learnt something that still shapes everything I do today: a story doesn’t become interesting simply because your brand wants to tell it.
You have to find the hook. The ‘so what?’ The reason someone on the other side of the page, screen or conversation should care.
Today, I bring that editorial instinct to brands, founders and businesses - uncovering the ideas and stories hiding inside what they do and turning them into content that feels intelligent, relevant, human and worth people’s time.
Editor’s Letter with Nadia Jaftha, August 2020
It started in magazines…
Magazines werethe best possible training ground for understanding audiences. Every day was an exercise in finding the angle that grounded the story in right now, choosing how to tell it in a way that nobody else had spotted and packaging it such that someone choose our cover, clicked on our story or joined our community. It was about making an audience feel it was part of an insider’s club and coming along for the ride.
As media evolved, so did the work.
I began building editorial brands and communities that moved easily between print, digital, social, video, audio and real-life experiences. At Media24, I launched Go Hustle, a content platform for young women entrepreneurs that combined founder storytelling and service journalism with networking and live events. I launched Fit Night Out, a mass participation, all-female work-out event that was rolled out across other Women’s Health territories globally and continues to win awards more than a decade after it was first dreamed into being.
That period fundamentally shaped the way I work now. I stopped thinking about content as one dimensional and started thinking in ecosystems: one strong idea can be reskinned to become a print feature, an infographic, a video, a social conversation, an event or a podcast.
The format changes, but the editorial thinking behind it doesn’t.
And that’s where I am today…
Today I work independently as an editorial and content strategist, writer and content director, partnering with brands and businesses that want to create something audiences genuinely choose to spend time with.
I edit Discovery Vitality Travel, consult to and produce content for brands including Exclusive Books, Queenspark and Skin Renewal, and lead the annual content direction for the Franschhoek Literary Festival. Recent projects have included launching and growing Ted Baker South Africa’s social channels, alongside editorial strategy, thought leadership and storytelling work for businesses and founders across travel, publishing, beauty, wellness and lifestyle.
I also write The Weakley Report, my own platform for opinion on culture, books, entertainment and modern midlife because I still love nothing more than writing - and after years at the helm of some of the biggest women’s media titles in the country, I am still resolutely pop culture obsessed.
Fit Night Out, Johannesburg, August 2019