SABC sets up political coverage complaints office

The SABC board called the special meeting to deal with concerns following concerted pressure which is increasingly being placed on the newsroom by political parties and allegations of bias levelled against its news division [see our poll Is the SABC biased in its political media coverage? and newswatch from earlier this week]. The attendees at the meeting included board members, senior editors, provincial editors and executive producers.

“The SABC board is extremely concerned by this external pressure and believes that it has the potential to seriously undermine the editorial independence of the news division,” Bheki Khumalo, the chairperson of the committee, said.

“Executive producers, in particular, complained about the pressure that they are being subjected to by political parties and other individuals, and were of the view that this would escalate as we get closer to the elections,” he added.

In the meeting, examples were given of threats levelled against some journalists and of SABC news staff being subjected to ongoing verbal abuse by politicians. According to a press statement from the SABC, the board and management “has full confidence in the integrity of its staff and the editorial processes and will work on the assumption that decisions that are taken in good faith, unless there is concrete evidence to the contrary”.

Following steps agreed upon

The meeting agreed to take the following steps:

• The stakeholder relations programme will be brought forward and meetings with political parties will be held before the end of the month. The meeting will discuss SABC's preparations for the elections and any concerns the parties may have.
  
• Over and above the ongoing monitoring that the SABC has contracted out to independent companies, further independent media monitoring - dealing specifically with election coverage - will be conducted to beef up its systems of checks and balances.
  
• In addition to the normal channels available, SABC News is setting up the office of a complaints officer who will deal with all complaints submitted in writing by political parties within 72 hours of submission. The name and contact details of this officer will be forwarded to all relevant stakeholders.
  
• There will be an internal campaign to re-affirm the primacy of the broadcasting charter, ICASA regulations and the editorial code in terms of election coverage and news broadcasts.

• There was also an acknowledgement that while SABC journalists have the constitutional right to hold political views, inter- or intra-party political activism or factionalism has no place in its newsrooms. Action will be taken against anyone employed who promotes political activism and factionalism within the newsroom.

The committee acknowledged that there may well be operational challenges within the newsroom and will consider legitimate complaints from political parties and the public about any aspect of the SABC News' operations, provided that these are substantiated.

The board, as the custodian of the editorial code, also stated that it will protect its editorial team from political parties or individuals who issue threats or abuse - verbally or otherwise to any of its editorial staff. It requests that legitimate and substantiated complaints must be dealt with in terms of the procedure set out above.