I'm all for strong, truthful, incisive and relevant coverage of the SABC that exposes and illuminates. And believe me, there's enough at the public broadcaster that can keep good strong journalists going for years, but some of the drivel dished up just makes me squirm. In a feeble attempt to compete with the consistently excellent coverage of the SABC by Business Day and The Independent (also only until Edwin Naidu abruptly left earlier this year) some journalists who clearly haven't been on the beat for long also want to lay little ostrich eggs. Empty ones. And by doing this they end up giving the broadcaster ammunition for not liking journalists and news coverage about it, and making it so much harder for all the rest of us trade journalists really trying to cover television accurately.
The highly unusual step of the SABC issuing a press release this afternoon - a Sunday afternoon - underscores the deep unhappiness within the broadcaster about a mess of a story in City Depressed today (also sindicated to another Sunday paper) about ''documents'' revealing SABC exec salaries.
''The SABC has noted with concern the misleading and malicious article,'' the broadcaster says and called it ''disturbing'' that the newspaper ''has attempted to make it seem as if they have uncovered a sinister plot of high-earning executives at the SABC.''
Indeed, as the SABC rightly indicated ''the truth of the matter is that this information is public knowledge as executives salaries are published in the Annual Report, with the SABC's report tabled in parliament in October this year.''
Indeed, I as well as other trade journalists were all over this months ago. The broadcaster also calls out the journalist for allegedly relying on ''untrustworthy sources'' and asks at the end of the press release: ''What agenda is being served when a newspaper intentionally gives the public ill-informed information?'' Says the SABC: ''Unprofessional journalism cannot continue at the cost of the SABC's reputation.''
