So says the pay-TV broadcaster in the wake of a shockingly racist and "abhorrent advertisement" for a "specifically White, English" commissioning editor that a recruitment agency placed on behalf of M-Net and that saw the contracted out Ambit Recruitment that subcontracted its work to Kandhi Consulting both immediately getting the axe.
M-Net says its still in the dark as to why Kandhi Consulting changed the advert that damaged M-Net's reputation, after a TV executive job listing surfaced that was "specifically looking for a White, English speaking commissioning editor".
M-Net called the racist advertisement that appeared "abhorrent" and moved swiftly to distance itself from the ad's language that it said was done without M-Net approval.
The Randburg pay-TV broadcaster tells TVwithThinus "we don't know why the sub-contracted agency changed the advert. We sent them a legal letter and we are still awaiting their response".
After the racism scandal the fired recruitment agency has taken full responsibility for their part in the shocking mistake.
"They also apologised unreservedly," says M-Net. "We would like to re-iterate that M-Net does not tolerate racism
and we take incidents such as these very seriously. We would never be
associated with any advertisement which only invites white applicants, as this
is contrary to our recruitment policy, our values and the Constitution."
M-Net was asked what the company is doing differently and changing because of the ugly racist job recruitment ad.
"Our
talent acquisition team in our human resources function are reviewing and tightening up our
engagement process with recruitment agencies to ensure that incidents like this
don’t happen again," says M-Net. "The talent acquisition team is responsible to drive
the recruitment process for M-Net and always ensures that the company gets the
best talent from all walks of life. They only use external recruitment
consultants as a supplementary service, and this process will be tightened
further". M-Net says the racist job advertisement has been removed from all platforms by the relevant suppliers.
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.
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.
A racist M-Net job ad seeking a commissioning editor for the Randburg-based pay-TV broadcaster is shocking South Africa's TV industry with its apartheid-style discriminatory requirement put out by Kandhi Consulting "specifically looking for a White, English speaking commissioning editor".
M-Net says it has fired Ambit Recruitment over the "abhorrent advertisement", with Ambit Recruitment that according to M-Net, subcontracted Kandhi Consulting without M-Net's permission or knowledge.
M-Net told TVwithThinus that the pay-TV broadcaster is "appalled by the advert, which was not authorised by us" and that "the advert you have alerted us to is racist, unlawful and disgraceful".
While the advert is legitimate and M-Net is indeed urgently looking for a commissioning editor for its scripted and reality division, M-Net is distancing the pay-TV broadcaster from the racist advert that was apparently contracted out and then subcontracted out again.
It's not clear if M-Net checks job adverts after they're placed - or if not, why M-Net doesn't scrutinise it's own job placement adverts when it's contracted out.
Ambit Recruitment has been working with Kandhi Consulting who has been subcontracted to run the shockingly racist job recruitment advertisement.
The job offer of R800 000 CTC (cost to company) M-Net executive position is for "a White, English speaking commissioning editor as this role is for someone who will produce soapies and programmes in this specific demographic".
"Please note: We are specifically looking for a White, English speaking commissioning editor" says the ad.
M-Net says it has sent letters to Ambit Recruitment giving notice of termination; to Kandhi
Consulting demanding that it apologise and remove the advert from all
platforms; and to Executive Placements, the website where the ad was found, asking that they
remove it immediately.
"M-Net is
appalled by the advert, which was not authorized by us," says the pay-TV broadcaster in a strongly-worded statement in response to a media enquiry on Sunday.
"M-Net would never
be associated with any advertisement which only invites white applicants, which
would be contrary to our recruitment policy, our values, the Constitution and
other legislation. The advert you have alerted us to is racist, unlawful and
disgraceful."
"We have
established that without our knowledge, our recruitment agency sub-contracted
another agency to advertise M-Net's vacancy for a commissioning
editor."
"Our proposed advert sent to our recruitment agency for this
vacancy made no reference to the race of the applicant," says M-Net.
"Our recruitment agency
has advised us that it did not mandate the sub-contracted agency to word the
advert in this racist manner."
"Our attempts to reach the sub-contracted agency
by telephone have not been successful. We view this in the most serious light
and are investigating the matter."
"We will take appropriate and firm action
(including of a disciplinary nature) should we find that anyone on our behalf
was involved in the production of this abhorrent advertisement."
"M-Net
has a zero-tolerance approach to racism and takes incidents such as these very
seriously," says the pay-TV broadcaster.
"Our employee profile is representative of our country's demographics
at every level to the highest office. We have a level 1 BBBEE rating and we
produce local shows that reflect our country's diverse cultures and languages."
