by Thinus Ferreira
On Thursday night at around 23:30 while Newzroom Afrika's (DStv 405) political editor Sbu Ngalwa had literally found and pulled a reluctant South African police national spokesperson Vish Naidoo into the camera glare for a live interview in the aftermath of a ministerial hostage drama, the SABC News (DStv 404) cameraman showed viewers how its reporter arrived after several minutes and ran to also push a mic into Vish's face.
It took even longer for the eNCA (DStv 403) cameraman to arrive to show that channel's viewers how the eNCA reporter scrambled down a corridor to, quite belatedly, also thrust a mic into Sbu Ngalwa's basically done interview.
Sbu Ngalwa's brilliant work, and cornering Vish Naidoo with a doorstop interview, was indicative of how the totality of Thursday night went on South African TV news in the play-by-play of covering the developing news story for television viewers.
Newzroom Afrika fully won the night after it quickly switched to rolling and constant coverage, including cellphone footage (that neither SABC News nor eNCA had) of the night's ministerial hostage drama.
Newzroom Afrika constantly kept churning out updates and interviews, including a right-panel update screen.
It put SABC News and eNCA to shame that both stuck with pre-recorded stories and election coverage for quite a while before trying to catch up and match Newzroom Afrika's "CNN-style" breaking, rolling coverage.
On Thursday night it looked like SABC News and eNCA were caught flat-footed, initially with more mooted coverage than Newzroom Afrika's borderline lurid, grainy cellphone video of the hostage drama that unfolded inside the St George's Hotel complex where South Africa's minister of defence Thandi Modise and other government officials were held hostage and had to be rescued by the South African Police Service Special Task Force.
Social media provides further proof of the pecking order of Thursday night's TV news channels' news coverage race.
eNCA on Twitter had absolutely nothing on its feed with no news updates after 22:00 where it apparently closed up shop and ended the night with a type of sponsored post about advertiser-funded content available on the channel.
SABC News put in a valiant effort with a few news updates but it's Newzroom Afrika that absolute excelled.
Newzroom Afrika churned out both text and video reports about the unfolding developments late into the night and already started notifying potential viewers throughout the night about who it was prepping and lining up for interviews on Friday morning.
Newzroom Afrika felt present and out front as a media outlet covering the event on various platforms while SABC News and eNCA looked as if it they were short on resources and scrambling to catch up.
While Newzroom Afrika was covering the breaking news with real rolling coverage, SABC News initially did more short reaction interviews and commentary from its Auckland Park studio before a reporter eventually arriving on the scene.
eNCA would break in with the story but would weirdly return to packaged election news and other stories before it also switched full-time to rolling coverage from outside the St George's Hotel.
Noteworthy is that Thursday night's coverage of the ministerial hostage drama was led by men: Three male anchors with Thabo Mdluli (Newzroom Africa), Peter Ndoro (SABC News) and Shahan Ramkissoon (eNCA) behind the studio desks, and three male field reporters, Sbu Ngalwa (Newzroom Afrika), Samkele Maseko (SABC News) and Pule Letshwiti-Jones (eNCA) at the scene of the hostage drama.
Thabo Mdluli, Peter Ndoro and Shahan Ramkissoon were all great at "anchoring" with skilled gravitas and holding all of the various strands of news information together once all three TV news channels were fully covering the unfolding story.
Shahan Ramkissoon showed wonderful presence of mind by holding up a cellphone to his lapel mic to get the audio to viewers.
Sbu Ngalwa was first inside the St George's Hotel complex doing walk-and-talk, on-the-ground reporting. SABC News and eNCA, together with Newzroom Afrika, eventually all showed roving reporters and cameramen roaming the hotel corridors.
Also noteworthy was how all three TV news channels were able to immediately extend their live coverage for the night on Thursday night for breaking South African news instead of switching to repeats at their pre-determined hours.
It's clear that some learning has taken place and contingency plans put in place at all three TV news channel newsrooms having been showed up and found wanting in the past with non-coverage and no live coverage of South African news of national importance happening late night.
Katy Katopodis, Newzroom Afrika news director, kept viewers informed and actually told the audience on social media that the channel would remain live on the story, saying "We're extending our live broadcast to bring you rolling coverage of the breaking news from the St George's Hotel. Our politics editor, Sbu Ngalwa is coming to you live from the scene".
Watching and tracking all three TV news channels simultaneously on Thursday night for hours, Newzroom Afrika clearly won the night by a wide margin and looked the most like breaking news and rolling news coverage of the ministerial hostage drama.
SABC News and eNCA were never able to fully match what Newzroom Afrika showed or did first - and better - on Thursday night.
While Newzroom Afrika showed cellphone footage of inside the room and with Sbu Ngalwa shown already walking around inside the hotel grounds and complex, at the same time SABC News would do a phone interview with static images while eNCA showed its reporter standing outside the front entrance.
In the TV news stakes, on Thursday night Newzroom Afrika was the one that constantly just looked the best.
