» SABC’s frequency is jammed

SABC’s frequency is jammed

October 16th, 2006

It is a sad day when a media company goes to court to stop the dissemination of information by another media company. That is what SABC did on the weekend, when it sought an urgent interdict to make the M&G remove from its website the report of the inquiry into its newsroom.

Apart from being a waste of time and money (as the report was alread widely disseminated), it showed how far the SABC has strayed from the basic ethics and culture of journalism.

South Africa’s newspapers have had to deal with a rash of people using the courts to try and suppress sensitive information. Media organisations have stood together to oppose such bids. For the SABC to try to use the courts in this way puts it on the side of those who want to suppress and not reveal information.

CEO Dali Mpofu had got off to a good start in his task, asserting his authority by calling a commission of inquiry into allegations that his news boss, Dr Snumi Zikalala, had operated a blacklist of commentators who were too critical of government. He put two strong and credible personalities in charge of the inquiry, in respected former journalist Zwelakhe Sisulu and senior advocate Gilbert Marcus.

But since they delivered their report to him, Mpofu has lost his way. He has been jumping around, apparently trying to hide or explain away the damning evidence they presented, and pursuing his critics (like the M&G) rather than dealing with the contents of the report.

This is my appeal to Mpofu: forget about the publication of the report, and don’t even think about taking the case on review or encouraging your staff to sue the M&G. It is only a distraction and will only make you look more foolish. Of course it is inconvenient and irritating to you that the report should be published before you intended, but that is the nature of running a public broadcaster in an open society. Live with it.

Deal with the central issue, which is that you need a plan to change the operating culture of your newsroom, you need to instill the spirit of independent journalism among your staff, you need to get them back on track.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, Radio, TV

4 Comments Add your own

1. George | March 7th, 2008 at 11:15 am

Please do have the SABC 1,2,3, new frequencies ?

If you do please dont hesitate to send it to my mail.

Thankyou.
2. Kwazulu Natal Hotels | June 26th, 2008 at 11:45 am

Its a shame to see these companies think about their own interest only… “Self interest all the way, don’t worry about the ethics”
3. Roy | July 26th, 2009 at 4:35 pm

Hi, pls mail me sabc 1,2,3 and etv brodcasting frequencies. Regards:Roy
4. eva | November 16th, 2010 at 12:06 pm

what ever, we still want our sabc back oooh.

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Anton Harber: Media

Professor Anton Harber directs the Journalism and Media Studies Programme at Wits University. He is former editor of the Mail & Guardian.
Full bio

Daily newspaper sales, South Africa
(Ave sales Jul-Dec)
1960 - 681 053 (Population 17,3m)
1970 - 723 566 (22m)
1980 - 803 229 (27,5m)
1990 - 1 214 396 (35,2m)
2000 - 1 117 886 (44m)
2006 - 1 600 000 (47,3m)
2011 - 1 310 000 (49m)

(Sources: ABC and nationmaster.com)

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“The (Incwala) ceremony is cloaked in secrecy and marks the (Swaziland) king’s return to public life after a period of withdrawal and spiritual contemplation. Among its highlights is a symbolic demonstration by the king of his power and dominance in a process involving his penetration of a black bull … But last year’s selected bull, according to a recent account from a whistle-blowing Incwala initiate, objected strongly, and threw off Africa’s last absolute monarch.” - Some surprises in this (un-bylined) account of Swaziland politics in Southern African Report

“When the Great Zucchini arrived that Saturday morning, Don had no idea who he was. Frankly, he didn’t look like a great anything. He looked like a house painter, Don thought, with some justification. He wears no costume. He was in painter’s pants, a coffee-stained shirt and a two-day growth of beard. He toted his beat-up props in beat-up steamer trunks, with ripped faux leather and broken hinges hanging askew.” - A classic of magazine profiling, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post.

Diepsloot (Jonathan Ball, 2011)

Diesploot: Of Frogs and Fractals, a public lecture at the University of Johannesburg, 4 August 2011

Troublemakers - The Best of South Africa’s Investigative Journalism (Jacana, 2101), edited by Anton Harber and Margaret Renn

Introduction - The Troublemakers: An account of the rise of a new wave of investigative journalism in South Africa.

What is Left Unsaid: Reporting the South African HIV Epidemic, edited by Kristin Palitza, Natalie Ridgard, Helen Struthers and Anton Harber (Fanele, 2010)