South African and African viewers on Monday saw how the SABC's alleged self-censorship continues in 2017 when the SABC's SABC News division abruptly cut the live feed and screens went black on its SABC News (DStv 404) channel and its You Tube stream when the EFF leader Julius Malema at a press conference unexpectedly mentioned the SABC's controversial boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
During the press conference of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on Monday in Johannesburg, leader Julius Malema decided to lay into the ANC political party through a proxy - the SABC's infamous incompetence icon, Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
Shocked viewers of the SABC News channel carried on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service, saw their TV screens suddenly flash to black, then green, and then revert to the SABC canned in-house ads. The You Tube live feed also stopped.
eNCA (DStv 403) didn't break the transmission of the press conference.
Either way, it was another embarrassing public blotch on the SABC News division's less that credible news service and comes after a year in which the SABC and SABC News suffered massive brand and reputational damage for its decision to censor TV news visuals and the unfair firing of SABC news journalists who the broadcaster was eventually forced to reinstate in their jobs.
On Monday during the press conference it wasn't that the SABC lost the signal or had technical problems.
SABC News as a channel remained on the air, as is evident by the overlay of the words "Live" and "SABC News" that remained on the black screen - but SABC executives deliberately appeared to have hastily cut the press conference feed.
"If you want to see how the ANC leadership looks like then just look at Hlaudi and you will know the type of crème de la crème of the ANC," said Julius Malema.
"In KwaZulu-Natal they said he must be part of the National Executive Committee. They are looking for such things. If you have anything that looks like Hlaudi, just give it to the ANC to be led by such things. There are no brains, they are gone. If there are no brains - "
It was at this point that the SABC abruptly killed the news feed on SABC News with viewers wondering why the SABC switched off with viewers who wanted to know why the SABC is censoring the EFF press conference when Hlaudi Motsoeneng was mentioned.
So far there's been no explanation from the SABC as to what happened on SABC News and why - or who decided to cut the feed when the EFF mentioned Hlaudi Motsoeneng and why the feed stopped showing the press conference at the specific moment when Hlaudi Motsoeneng was started to be criticised.
