This is how totally bullsh*t bad the South African public broadcaster's SABC News has become: On Thursday evening the SABC's flagship daily news bulletin in primetime on SABC3 couldn't find the time to report on a public protest from civil society against the SABC but had the time to waste on a totally bull(sh*t) irrelevant foreign story about ... a runaway bull.
"How bizarre," remarked a schmaltzy Peter Ndoro to the South African nation on Thursday evening's broadcast on SABC3, complete with faux laugh next to co-anchor Natasha Thorp as they grinned and pleasantly bantered over an escaped bull from a farm in Romania which ran over a busy intersection.
Peter Ndoro introducing "the shocking story" and remarking "how bizarre" it was, came across as highly ironic, since civil South Africa today picketed the SABC over rampant censorship and other concerns - although none of that was to be seen on the SABC's most important news bulletin today.
Yet the hour long SABC News Primetime bulletin found and had 35 seconds to devote to a story filled with bull on television.
Scores of people protested this afternoon at the SABC's Auckland Park headquarters, amidst ongoing and growing concern from the public about censorship at the SABC, skewed SABC editorial practice, as well as undue internal editorial interference.
The picketing at the SABC was prompted by the sudden and unexpected cancellation by the SABC of its own locally produced current affairs talk show The Big Debate which was pulled off of the SABC2 schedule on instructions of the broadcaster's famously matricless acting chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
(The runaway bull in Romania was finally concerned in an alleyway. Also, in my opinion, the SABC's news coverage has become a veritable sh*tfest of sadness.)
