» “Clarification” from the DoC

“Clarification” from the DoC

April 12th, 2007

I am pleased to see that the Department of Communications has been quick to back off from the threat to stop the licensing of new pay-TV operations.

After my last column, the DoC Director General, Lyndall Shope-Mafole, “corrected” some things that were said.

â€œFrom recent media reports it is clear that there is confusion regarding the Pay TV licensing process that has been started by ICASA and the Broadcasting Digital Migration Strategy process launched by the Department of Communications. The Department would like to set the record straight on a number of issues,â€? she said in a statement.

The statement said that â€œat no point has the Minister proposed that there be a moratorium on pay television licensing process, as has been alleged by the mediaâ€? and â€œthat it is common and legislated knowledge that the licensing of broadcasting services is and continues to be an ICASA process.â€?

â€œThe document that was issued for public comment largely represents the proposals of the Digital Migration Working Group which was made up of experts and representative of the broadcasting industry in the main. The Group handed its report to Minister late last year.â€?

â€œThe department hosted a consultative workshop which was meant to collect views from the broader ICT industry. It was made clear in the workshop that the draft strategy and the implementation were not representative of the views of the department and therefore the Minister. Industry was given until the 4th of April to submit input for consideration by the Department for gazetting.â€?

My column made it clear that the issue was raised for discussion. But none of those I spoke to who were at the consultative workshop left with anything but the impression that the call for a moratorium was coming from officials, who did not distance themselves from it. The most benevolent explanation is that this was a communication mishap from a Department of Communication in which communication is not always a strength.

Either way, it is a good thing that the department appears to be distancing itself from the call for a moratorium.

Less benign were the words of the Minister’s spokesperson. Albie Modise accused me of trying “every trick in the book to demonise Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and the communications department”. I am not sure what tricks I tried. I was critical. I did sound a strongly-worded warning that the moratorium had grave implications. But how this gets elevated to “demonisation” is beyond me.

Entry Filed under: Anton Harber, Media regulation, TV

1 Comment Add your own

1. Albi Modise | April 15th, 2007 at 11:09 am

My concern with your article is that you failed to inform your readers that the Digital Broadacst Migration Strategy document was a draft released for comment, not a reflection of the policy position of the Ministry nor the department. By not doing that you caused unnecessary panic in the sector and investors in this sector. Much as I have respect for you as a journalist Anton, I had to clarify that point. It was quite unfair of you to misrepresent this national process by arguing that we are trying to undermine ICASA. We could never succeed even if we tried to, as the regulator’s licensing role is legislated. Please refer to ICASA Act and EC Act. These are pieces of legislation that were driven by the same Minister you misrepresented in your article. It does not take much to get your facts right Mr Harber!. Albi Modise

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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)

“It was pure political theatre. The excited room was filled with government officials, government consultants, quasi-government agencies, politicians and pupils from government schools. As if on cue, the room rang with applause as one education victory after another was claimed. This was, after all, the annual drama in which the minister of basic education appears on stage to announce the Grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results …” - Educationist Jonathan Jansen, one of the few with the credibility to look critically at this “celebratory orgy of mediocrity”.

“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)