Coronavirus: M-Net's Carte Blanche to continue with new episodes through Covid-19 on Sundays, will do 2 stories looking at the growing pandemic in South Africa and globally.

by Thinus Ferreira

The weekly investigate and current affairs programme Carte Blanche on M-Net (DStv 101) will continue on Sunday evenings at 19:00 through the weeks of South Africa's national lockdown period and will this Sunday once again feature stories about the growing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa and globally.

While production of the weekly current affairs show produced by Combined Artistic Productions, has been impacted similar to a lot of other locally-produced South Africa TV shows, Carte Blanche has quickly adapted. Some inserts have already been pre-recorded for playout and production staffers are also working remotely as far as possible.

Similar to this past Sunday, Carte Blanche will stay on the Covid-19 pandemic story that's dominating headlines in South Africa and abroad with two inserts - one following its impact in South Africa, and one looking at the global impact so far.

Presenter Claire Mawisa and producer Sophia Phirippides will firstly look at the economic devastation of the national lockdown in South Africa as the panic of the lockdown is beginning to set it for members of the public and businesses forced to close.

As the global community fights to contain the pandemic and already depressed economic activity all but grinds to a halt, Carte Blanche examines how South Africans are bracing for the impact.

Then presenter John Webb who is also producing the second insert is examining how Europe and especially Ireland is trying to prepare for the peak in the steady rise of Covid-19 cases.

With Europe currently the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts estimate that Ireland is only likely to see infection rates peak around June and July.

John Webb meet a sports broadcaster, lawyer, tour guide and charity founder from Ireland trying to make sense of life as the Irish government clamps down on free movement and tries to enforce social distancing.

"The Irish I've been speaking to are wathing Italy closely, worried something similar will happen here," he says. "After all, it's only a 2-hour flight away. But they're also determined to see this thing through with a smile on their face."

"Pity the Irish government, though, who have had to get this nation of writers, musicians and raconteurs to stop socialising. Luckily for the most part, the Covid-19 penny has dropped and much of this country has gone quiet."

In other inserts on Sunday evening Carte Blanche will look at the ongoing spate of robberies targeting luxury wristwatches. Presenter Derek Watts and producer Kate Barry speak to the widow of a British tourist who was robbed and killed and investigate what drives the trade in stolen watches and Rolex gangs.

Then Carte Blanche also investigates the dilapidated Bloemfontein zoo where animals have been neglected and some left to die in the months after the provincial department of environment closed the zoo's doors for business.

The Bloemfontein zoo has become the latest casualty of the bankrupt Mangaung municipality with presenter Masa Kekana and producer Stenette Grosskopf investigating.

Crime catches Carte Blanche as the TV crew of M-Net's investigative magazine show, with guest presenter Masa Kekana in her first insert, gets held up and robbed at gunpoint.

Crime caught up with Carte Blanche as the crew of M-Net's (DStv 101) weekly investigative and current affairs show got held up and robbed at gunpoint - ironically while filming an insert at a "dead" corner where there are no cameras installed for a story about the proliferation of Vumatel's Vumacam surveillance cameras in Johannesburg.

A new surveillance camera system, Vumacam from Vumatel, is being rolled out in the Johannesburg central business district (CBD) and surrounding suburbs as a R500 million high-tech solution to South Africa's rising crime rates, but some people are objecting over privacy concerns.

The radio presenter Masa Kekana joined Carte Blanche to do her first insert as a guest presenter produced by Sophia Phirippides, but then endured a baptism of fire when Masa Kekana and the crew suddenly became a crime statistic after they were held up and robbed at gunpoint with no visual footage to show for it.

Masa Kekana interviewed spokesperson Murray Hunter of the civil rights organisation Right2Know (R2K) on a suburb streetcorner in Johannesburg with cameraman Thabo Maleswene, with the organisation that has serious misgiving about how the Vumacam surveillance system and cameras are being rolled out.

A Vumacam street pole was already erected on the street corner, but no cameras have been installed yet.

"Minutes later," said Masa Kekana, "our whole crew was robbed at gunpoint. All our equipment was stolen but thankfully no-one was harmed". The robbers - two men - were loitering nearby and scouting out the area and the Carte Blanche team until they decided to make their armed attack on the TV crew.

After the robbery and recovering from their harrowing ordeal, Carte Blanche returned to the same street corner to finish the R2k interview for the insert, but with security guards in a bakkie of the ADT security company parked nearby.

Sunday's episode of Carte Blanche with the Vumacam story is now available on DStv Now's Catch Up service.