SABC revives 1970's paranoia

What the SABC fails to understand is that it always has been and always will be fair and unfair game for newspapers. These days the newspapers certainly seem to have good reason because the SABC has been behaving in such a way that it is not only creating the perception that it is bowing and scraping to its political masters but its news bulletins are such that this can safely be assumed to be reality.

Sure, there have been times when newspapers have bashed the SABC just for the heck of it and just because in recent years it was taking a fairly hefty slice of advertising revenue pie away from the print media. But, that's no longer any sort of motive.

Slipping back

The SABC definitely seems to be slipping back into its 1970's/1980's role as government mouthpiece first and servant to the people of South Africa second.

Two recent announcements have given impetus to this.

The first is that as a counter to the attacks on the integrity of the news department, an internal inquiry is to take place. Nothing wrong with that - except this particular inquiry is to be headed up by former SABC boss, Zwelakhe Sisulu.

Now, Mr Sisulu is a man of honour and integrity and in fact, under his watch at the SABC there were very few criticisms in terms of his bowing to his political masters.

The trouble is that just because of his name alone, forgetting about the fact that he is an ANC stalwart and related to heaven knows how many other ANC stalwarts, perception will have it that he will be biased in favour of giving the SABC news department a clean bill of health. And perception unfortunately is always far more powerful than reality. Unless of course, his finding is that SABC news is politically motivated, biased and every bad thing the newspapers say it is.

The second alarm bell has been rung by the concept of SABC running a programme in which it will take a 'critical' look at the print media. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is something that should be warmly applauded and encouraged. Mainstream newspapers in this country have no media critics at present and when they are criticised they tend to take it very badly.

The only trouble is, a programme such as this will simply not work. And the reason is because television is essentially an entertainment medium and the population of South Africa does not rank media bashing or even the news for that matter, as entertaining in the least. One needs just to look at TV's top 10 programmes to realise that South Africa is obsessed with soap operas and reality shows.

It won't work

All of which means that any sort of programme devoted to an in depth look at the shenanigans of the print media will serve only to warm the cockles of the hearts of those few people in the SABC news department who are presently reacting badly to newspaper critics.

It is sad indeed to see the SABC returning to the laager. And that it is certainly doing because just like in the 1970's and 1980's when South Africans tuned in to independent broadcasters such as Radio 702 because they couldn't trust SABC news, so today are more and more people tending to watch the news on e.tv to find out what is really happening in this country - rather than just what politicians are telling them is happening.