» State of the Broadcasting Nation

State of the Broadcasting Nation

February 11th, 2007

Even if you accept the current framework of SABC news - that a major part of their mandate is to communicate government’s message to their audience - then you have to wonder about the quality of their coverage of of Friday’s State of the Nation speech.

Forget the debate about the SABC’s values and news judgements. If they want to cover government, and engage citizens in important national issues, they need to do it a lot better. Friday’s broadcast was too long, too tedious, saw a transmission break in the middle of the speech (ironically, as Mbeki spoke about crime) and technically shoddy. There was a lot of poor camera work and ridiculous choice of angles, including long shots from a helicopter which probably cost a fortune, but showed us little more than the roofs of Cape Town.

This is no way to cover anything. Tight, sharp coverage of what are in effect long and boring events is what is needed. Bring them to life and don’t give us hours and hours of second-rate presenters who have very little to say.

Show some imagination and creativity, please. News cannot be about just putting the cameras there and trying to keep them running when something important is happening. It has to be about making it interesting, engaging and understandable to the audience.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Journalism, TV

1 Comment Add your own

1. Susan Stos | February 20th, 2007 at 9:00 am

The problem, from my point of view, is that too few people are trained properly in television production. Not only are they inadequately equipped to perform technical functions, they see positions such as floor director, autocue, graphics - whatever - as mere stepping stones to the top. There is no pride in being the best production secretary, or vision controller. Everyone wants to be a producer or a director without understanding how television is actually produced.

At the same time, there is no comprehension that a good variety director may not make a good news director. There’s a “one size fits all” mentality when it comes television directing. Did anyone see South Africa’s broadcast submission at the end of the 2006 World Cup? It was disastrous, amateurish, and made us look like we were in way over our heads. The director? A very pleasant young man who generated titles only a few years back.

That’s not to say that there must be no chance for advancement. But a live broadcast such as the one in Munich last year should have been in the hands of the most experienced events director we have in the country. And I would suspect this is what happened during the State of the Nation address.

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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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