by Thinus Ferreira
In Wednesday night's three-horse race of South African TV news channels and their respective rolling coverage of the impending arrest of Jacob Zuma, SABC News (DStv 404) ended as the overall winner, followed by an opinion-slanted eNCA (DStv 403) that also did bad "reporting" based on unconfirmed sources, while Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) seemed to run out of stream after a few hours.
eNCA reporter Siphamandla Goge was Wednesday night's most valuable player during Zuma Arrest Watch as the country tuned in to watch the impending arrest and jailing of former president Jacob Zuma.
At 21:00 on Wednesday night as the various South African TV news channels had reporters stationed outside Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal and at Westville prison, Newzroom Afrika was actually in the lead with the best coverage and live crossings, followed by SABC News and with eNCA in third place that was running a TV talk show.
Over the course of the following three hours, both SABC News (DStv 404) and eNCA each improved their coverage.
SABC News improved from second position to first, eNCA (DStv 403) improved from third position to second, and Newzroom Africa (DStv 405) that seemed to get a bit lost in terms of editorial direction, fell from first to third place in its coverage.
The first big question on Wednesday night was which of the three TV news channels might stay with original and live rolling coverage and whether eNCA, SABC News and Newzroom Afrika might switch to repeats and rebroadcasts from around 22:00 and 23:00 on Wednesday night.
Luckily, all have seemingly learnt the lesson from previous late-night no-shows when it came to Jacob Zuma news, fires and other big South African news events that they had previously ignored and they all stayed with live anchoring and on-location reporting on Wednesday until past midnight.
SABC News reporters really stood out in their night-time, on-location, bright yellow and very professional looking reporter jackets.
SABC News also did the most live crossings, to the most reporters, with the widest range of commentators.
SABC News anchor Peter Ndoro was calm and collected and borderline "boring" and semi-detached throughout - an excellent anchor for the unfolding hurry-up-and-wait situation as he brought a sober, very matter-of-fact, fact-based approach to the SABC's conveying of the news.
The SABC News coverage style was objective, and Peter Ndoro and SABC News reporters were actually very careful in their language use - carefully denoting when they didn't know, noting precisely what little at times they did know, and with very little personal speculation and opinion.
eNCA was initially behind in Wednesday's "main match pre-show build-up", running a JJ Tabane studio-based talk show from Hyde Park while SABC News and Newzroom Afrika were giving on-the-ground reports at the same time.
From 21:30 onwards, eNCA improved with Shahan Ramkissoon in the NewsNight anchor chair, but the channel also damaged credibility and coverage with opinion-based injections and some bad "journalism" that detracted from eNCA delivering a fact-based, history-making night TV special that could proudly live in the video vault.
Shahan Ramkissoon seemed giddy at times and over-emoted a tad too much, conveying to viewers how incredible the night's constantly unfolding events were. It's fine to be excited but do you really want to be on a plane where you know that the pilot is actually hand-claspingly excited as well?
eNCA did damagingly bad "reporting", telling viewers in unsubstantiated claims that South Africa's Constitutional Court was considering a letter from Jacob Zuma, with eNCA citing "sources" and saying "we're hearing" and it's "unconfirmed". Why on Earth was eNCA then even verbalising this unconfirmed rumour-mongering on-air?
eNCA reporter Siphamandla Goge shined as the night's best reporter. He asked the most questions, led the pack of TV reporters camping out at Nkandla and excelled in drawing out new information from interviews and translating to viewers what protestors were doing and saying, as well as alertingeNCA when a Jacob Zuma convoy suddenly swerved out the gate and left for jail.
While it was a schadenfreude-filled, fun and frivolous watch, Shahan Ramkissoon who stayed live on eNCA after midnight - pitting JJ Tabane and the ever-caustic Mzwanele Manyi against each other in a to-and-fro shouting match - eNCA's Real House husbands of Mzansi trash-talking edition was ultimately empty news calorie newstainment.
Similar to Silindelo Masikane's tabloid-trash interview with Norma Mngoma on eNCA in December 2020, the on-air boxing match between JJ Tabane and Mzwanele Manyi didn't yield any actual news beyond more bloviating opinion and he-said, he-said rhetoric and did a disservice to eNCA.
While the copying of the low-brow opinion-based, infotainment style of commercial American TV news channels like FOX News and MSNBC do bring viewers short-term, it also damages the credibility of a channel like eNCA when it comes to fact-based news reporting over the longer run.
It was fun to watch Shahan Ramkissoon telling Mzwanele Manyi with a tinge of sarcasm to "also learn" from international spokespeople and to keep his answers short, but behaviour like this signals to guests and viewers that eNCA is unable to keep things professional and not personal.
The TV news channel very well knows who Mzwanele Manyi is and how he behaves - yet deliberately chose to invite him on and give him a massive amount of air-time on Wednesday night and into Thursday morning.
At the end, Mzwanele Manyi remains a guest - an invited guest - and should be treated with respect even if he decides to be rude and arrogant.
On Newzroom Afrika, Thabo Mdluli anchored Wednesday night's coverage. Nothing was really wrong or bad but there wasn't anything unique about its news offering.
Although Newzroom Afrika didn't veer into the editorialising and opinion-infused infotainment of eNCA, it also didn't have the breadth of SABC News' reporting.
Newzroom Afrika seemed to run out of stream and got pipped to the post by SABC News and eNCA. A few times reporters looked a little bit frazzled and dazed. Perhaps SABC News and eNCA were as well but maybe hid it a bit better.
Luckily, Nkandla seemingly only had one entrance/exit and reporters and camera crew were waiting at the right place. Channels also dispatched reporters to prisons like Westville and eNCA arrived just in time at Estcourt Correction Centre.
A lot could have gone wrong in Wednesday night's coverage but luckily didn't.
The three TV news channels could have captured more and could possibly have planned better with more and better quality commentators and analysts pre-booked and on-hand for the late hours but it's commendable that pay-TV viewers at least got what SABC News, eNCA and Newzroom Afrika provided.
Kudos that SABC News, eNCA and Newzroom Afrika remained live on Wednesday night.
Bar eNCA's atrocious ConCourt rumours that isn't journalism, the three channels and their collective Zuma Arrest Watch coverage could have been better but for late-night coverage - that local channels are not really used to doing - was good enough.
