SABC+problem,+bias+or+bungling,+Editorial,+B+Day+Weekender

Business Day Weekender, Editorial, 17 June 2006
=SABC’s problem is not so much bias as bungling=

THE SABC’s reasoning for not flighting the unauthorised documentary of President Thabo Mbeki is so fraught with contradictions and muddled thinking, it’s tempting to consider SA’s public voice as not so much responsible for censorship but rather guilty of just being hopelessly, irresponsibly inept.

The sequence of events is disputed, but the uncontested facts seem to have unfolded something like this: the SABC decided to introduce a documentary series of “unauthorised" biographies last year. Among the personalities chosen were Mbeki, Felicia Mabuza-Suttle, Edwin Cameron, Patricia de Lille, Irvin Khoza, Cathy O’Dowd and Schabir Shaik. It then farmed out the production of the documentaries to outside contractors. The Mbeki series was given to Broad Daylight Films, partly owned by Ben Cashdan, and was scheduled to be screened on May 17 on SABC 3.

The producers claim the documentary was given the thumbs-up by SABC lawyer Barry Ashman, except for a few minor changes. The SABC agrees Ashman cleared the series, but says Ashman’s superior, Christopher David, came to the opposite view.

SABC group CEO Dali Mpofu says that subsequently he ordered the legal department to present him with a conclusive opinion from an external media law specialist. Bernard Hotz of Werksmans found that key portions of the documentary were defamatory. Two other counsel were asked and both concluded it was “incurably defamatory" and that none of the legal defences to defamation was available to the SABC. The critical point is that all these secondary opinions were obtained after the decision was taken to pull the documentary.

The producers believe that when Mpofu briefed members of the SABC board about the film, he incorrectly asserted that it implicated Mbeki in the assassination of Chris Hani. This would be an odd claim to make, since Mpofu says he had not seen the documentary. The producers claim the documentary merely makes reference to the rumour which formed the basis of the alleged 2001 plot, and quotes Mbeki discussing the rumour.

The documentary has also been seen by other lawyers and journalists, including renowned Wits journalism professor Anton Harber. In his column for Business Day, Harber said the documentary was “reasonably well made, fair and balanced, and it did what the brief was for this particular series: to get behind the scenes and tackle the controversies and issues around the individual". He also said he saw “no legal or ethical objection to it".

At a heated press conference earlier this week, Mpofu proudly asserted the “marketplace of ideas" philosophy to which the SABC supposedly subscribes. He said “nonsensical value-based and ideologically loaded right-wing vitriol should not be mistaken for legitimate public commentary". It’s just absurd to argue that the decision to pull such a politically sensitive documentary is not politically motivated when you castigate your own contractors for what you see as their political bias.

The problem for the SABC is not so much this particular incident, but the pattern that has emerged. It has now refused to screen an interview with former prime minister PW Botha. This documentary by all accounts might not have been perfectly balanced, but it was a straightforward interview which South Africans would have been interested to see.

Then in December last year, former deputy president Jacob Zuma was asked to take part in an interview after his selection as “newsmaker of the year". No sooner was the interview requested than it was cancelled.

And now this. It is obviously up to the SABC to decide what to publish and what not, according to its own criteria. But it does seem the SABC is smarting from the growing perception that its news presentation is biased.

It seems to have such a protective attitude about what the public should be allowed to see and such a narrow view of what constitutes news or commentary worthy of publication, that it can’t help tripping over its own feet.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/weekender.aspx?ID=BD4A217188**

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