South African's public broadcaster - during the apartheid years monikered "His master's voice" for kowtowing to the then-reigning National Party and branded a blatant extension of its propaganda apparatus - is facing an massive and growing chorus of criticism from public society, extremely concerned about the perceived way in which the SABC has yet again become a shill and shameless agenda driver for the reigning political regime.
One swallow does not the summer make, but 2012 at the SABC is replete with example after example after example of "ad bans", word bans [compound], the SABC admitting to not following its own editorial guidelines and having blacklisted commentators, commentators banned and cancelled from news and actuality shows, public demonstrations by political parties against the SABC alleging news bias and unfair coverage, and alleged people bans such as Julius Malema being persona non grata on SABC airwaves.
It's happening in 2012 under the auspices of Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the acting chief operator officer (COO) of the SABC who famously doesn't have matric, and Jimi Matthews, the acting head of news and current affairs at the SABC as Phil Molefe, the permanent head of news and current affairs has now been on indefinite "special leave" for the bigger part of the year.
After the latest shocking incident - the SABC cancelling at the last minute on three newspaper commentators for a radio show about the ANC's elective congress (Sam Mkokeli, the political editor of Business Day, S'thembiso Msomi, the Sunday Times' political editor and Andrew England, the Financial Times' South African bureau chief) - the corporation is facing an unrelenting avalanche of condemnation for its perceived biased editorial and news decisions which seems wholly misguided.
At a hastily convened press conference on Wednesday, Hlaudi Motsoeneng said that "it [the radio show's would-be topic] was a discussion about the ANC. Our view is simple: you need the ANC to be a part of that decision. We are not banning anyone as people are saying we are banning people. We have to be fair to all citizen [sic] of this country. So then we have done that, and we stick by that decision."
"We mean business here at the SABC. This is leadership at it's best that we can ever find," said Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
Leslie Ntloko, the acting head of radio at the SABC, quoting the SABC's editorial policy said that 'an event of national importance' requires objectivity and balance from SABC staff and that decision [to suddenly cancel the guests and the topic] were made because these rules were not followed.
"This controversy further edifies the established perception that the public broadcaster is no more than a tool with and through which the ruling party secures and displays its hold on political power," said the Support Public Broadcasting Coalition (SOS) in a strongly-worded statement on Wednesday evening.
The SOS Coalition, a vast public pressure group in South Africa representing the TV and film industry and macro bodies, trade unions, academics, independent film and TV production companies, media institutes and freedom of expression activists and NGO's, said that the SABC occupies the position as "the ugly duckling of freedom of expression and media freedom" in South Africa and needs to transform itself from its "long compromised credibility".
"We deserve a transformed SABC. We deserve a credible SABC. We deserve an SABC that works," says the SOS Coalition.
William Bird, director of Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) says that in media "many debates and discussions take place without the person or representative present. Crucially though this was a current affairs programme where it would have been clear that the views presented were those of the participants."
"In the current instance it seems to have been clearly the wrong decision to shut down debate rather than open it up when it is something that people are talking about regardless," says William Bird.
The trade union Mwasa says "for the 'red-telephone' to ring and a scheduled interview is canned is simply not acceptable to say the least. The SABC cannot be allowed to degenerate to the level where individuals are allowed the space to use personal ill-gained influence to import prophylactic measures for prevention of genuine open debates and even dissenting views."
"South Africans should not be forced into distrusting the SABC and into questioning its commitment to serving the citizens of this country. Those that continue to subjugate the SABC to factional interests should be sanctioned."
The ANC Youth League called the cancellation of the interviews "tragic" and "censorship". "The SABC consistently fails to uphold objectivity in the execution of its mandate, and has become a ridiculous pawn in the political theatre they are expected to impartially report on," says the ANC Youth League in a statement.
The Democratic Alliance communications spokesperson, MP Marian Shinn demanded that Hlaudi Motsoeneng be removed from his "news oversight role".
Congress of the People MP Juli Kilian said that if the SABC board did not "rein in its senior management" that the party would insist on the dismissal of the board next year.
"We are deeply disturbed by this apparent example of blatant censorship, something which is an insult to the public's right to know," says the Cape Town Press Club in a statement.
