It was all kinds of cringe on Monday evening watching how ANN7 (DStv 405) on MultiChoice's DStv decided to throw pay-TV broadcaster M-Net under the bus for its racist recruitment ad in another sarcastic Sindy segment marred by mistakes.
ANN7 on Monday followed up on reporting that M-Net fired Ambit Recruitment for a patently racist job ad seeking a "Specifically White, English commissioning editor".
M-Net - the pay-TV broadcaster and the Randburg-based company distanced itself from Ambit Recruitment.
It's important to note here that M-Net the company, also runs a TV channel that's also called M-Net, on channel 101 of MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.
Keep in mind that the shockingly racist advert was for a commissioning editor job position that was advertised by the company - the corporate part - not the TV channel part.
M-Net in response to a media enquiry from TVwithThinus on Sunday said Ambit Recruitment subcontracted the job recruitment ad placement out and did so without M-Net's knowledge, to Kandhi Consulting.
M-Net said that the company never specified any race demographic requirement in its brief to Ambit Recruitment.
M-Net called the job ad "abhorrent", and M-Net - rightly so - caught a lot of flack from South Africa's TV industry and South Africans who called the pay-TV broadcaster out for the blatant racism.
Now cue ANN7.
The Mzwanele "Jimmy" Manyi owned TV channel decided to chime in on Monday evening with another one of its eye-rolling ANN Prime segments with anchor Sindy Mabe where slanted, leading questions is an ANN7 format forte.
These always end in a question mark so as to cushion thinly-veiled statements and opinions as questions, sort of like asking "Is ANN7 a disgrace to South African television and sowing racial division or is it trying to do TV news?"
While M-Net was legitimately bad and deserves a lot of criticism for the racist job recruitment ad, ANN7 could have produced the segment a lot better in bringing real proper context to this issue of racial discrimination in the job seeking sector.
Instead ANN7's toxic talking heads format came across as worsening and inflaming existing racial divisions in South Africa - something that more than 12 500 DStv subscribers have already signed a petition over this year.
Also keep in mind that ANN7 used DStv's airwaves on Monday evening to do so.
DStv subscribers, whether they watch this hot mess or not, are still forced to pay for this type of badly done television.
The Monday evening trash piece was cringe-worthy to watch.
Let's review the ANN7 Prime segment that ANN7 did and the several problems with it, using the same "slanted question method" that ANN7 loves to employ.
"In its segment about M-Net's racist job recruitment ad looking for a "White, English" speaking person, was it wrong and bad for ANN7 to decided to use only one in-studio guest who is White and English speaking, to comment?"
"Does that one guest and several caller comments adequately frame the important issue and help viewers to understand the issue better?"
"Could ANN7's segment possibly have been better if it booked and used the admitted plagiarist Prof. Sipho Seepe that ANN7 often employs as a commentator on subjects? Where was he to tell the nation about M-Net on Monday night if he's used for a wide range of topics like the SABC?"
"Were interns on duty in the ANN7 control room, or why did ANN7 decide to leave out stuff again like the word 'been' that belongs between "not" and "revealed" in its screen card?"
"Why did ANN7 use the M-Net HD channel logo (and an old outdated one as well) that refers to a specific TV channel, when the issue is about M-Net the company and a broadcaster business?"
"Why did Sindy erroneously say that M-Net's 'got a recruiting agency, Kandhi Consulting, who then subsequently got a third party to do the project or the campaign' - when it's actually exactly the other way around?"
"Will ANN7 and Sindy perhaps again be forced to do an on-air apology by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission like it had to do last month?"
"Why does Sindy Mabe waste precious on-air time with sarcasm, saying things like 'such a lovely letter to reassure us that look, they couldn't make the time to come in studio, nonetheless that they took the effort to write a responding email to our questions?"
"Why does Sindy Mabe throw M-Net under the bus by asking about 'that lovely note, that the M-Net CEO is unable to even pick up the phone and engage us on this platform but they send out their carefully crafted PR statement' when ANN7 itself is terrible with responding to media enquiries and rarely respond to emails from the media?"
As a TV critic covering South Africa's TV industry, I feel that ANN7 wasted a golden opportunity to do a more nuanced exploration of a very serious issue.
ANN7 failed to actually advance the story and did a disservice to the country's TV biz and in general to South African pay-TV viewers.
ANN7 failed by not more adequately doing a proper and more representative segment on a very serious issue and a big mistake that could - and must - serve as an important talking point.
