The SABC's new head of news and current affairs Phathiswa Magopeni on Sunday declared her editorial stance for the SABC's SABC News division, saying "we are independent, we are impartial. And this is how the SABC is going to practice our news gathering, our dissemination and our processing of news."
Phathiswa Magopeni was interviewed on Sunday morning by Ashraf Garda on SAfm's The Media Show and said "it's important for me that I speak the truth" and mentioned that the SABC's newsroom operations will be reviewed as a matter of urgency to enable greater news gathering integration at the public broadcaster.
On why she decided to ditch eNCA (DStv 403) and move to the SABC as the South African public broadcaster's latest head of news and current affairs, she said "the public interest made the call. I've been here, before, in fact, I started here."
"I've always been attracted to public broadcasting. For me the reason that I'm here, it stems from what happened in the recent past with issues around editorial independence at the SABC."
"Sitting on the other side I was thinking: There's something to be done there. And it was a necessary call to be made".
"This entity belongs to the South African public," said Phathiswa Magopeni. "This is a very crucial and precious resource of the South African public and it has to deliver on its mandate as enshrined in the Broadcasting Act."
"[Me] being here is about strengthening that mandate," she said and noted that the SABC in its editorial news approach needs to remain impartial.
Phathiswa Magopeni, when asked what she makes of the current state of the SABC's news, she said "it's not as bad as people make it. You can tell here that there are professionals, who are committed to their work. All we need to do is to fix the environment because it's the physical spaces and the psychological spaces that have impacted on how people do their work. That's exactly what I'm going to be working on. It is my responsibility to fix that and deal with it."
She said "each journalist within the SABC will have to do introspection, in the way you decide what to broadcast, and what you include in your stories. So that requires us to interrogate our own prejudices, our allegiances and our own stereotypical."
"I'm going to deal with the newsroom issues and I'm going to deal with how journalists work," said Phathiswa Magopeni.
"It is important for me to state what the SABC's editorial position is upfront: We are independent, we are impartial. And this is how the SABC is going to practice our news gathering, our dissemination and our processing of news."
"SABC News is here to serve the public interest, there is no ambiguity about what we need to do," she said, adding that the SABC "is going to take viewer and listener feedback because they are our primary stakeholder. We are going to listen to the public and we are going to try and see if we can work towards what we are meant to do".
"From an operational point of view we're looking at having an integrated SABC newsroom. We're looking at having a single SABC news platform. What I'm trying to get to do is staying away from defining ourselves based on what platforms do - like radio, or it's digital, or it's TV. People don't come to us for that."
"They don't come to buy TV sets from us. They come to us for our news content, so we're going to have to make sure that our platforms are integrated and that we are able to deliver a socially driven product that has consciounce".
"The idea of having an editorial meeting for radio, an editorial meeting for TV and an editorial meeting elsewhere that's going to deal with digital platforms, that's going to be reviewed. We need to have a central point where we need with our content."
Phathiswa Magopeni said the SABC's news division isn't eNCA and that SABC News has a different mandate and is a different platform.
"We have a big scope to cover. It's going to limit us if we mimic what they [eNCA] do because we have resources, we have a large footprint in the country. If we're going to do what they do, we're going to limit our own ability in terms in what South Africans require. So we're going to play our own game."
She said "I know sometimes I will say things that make people uncomfortable but you get what I'm trying to communicate to you. I'm always considerate in the way that I communicate things, but I will not compromise who I am and what I think because I'm trying to please you or make you comfortable."
"So it's important for me that I speak the truth," said Phathiswa Magopeni.
