Doom+and+gloom+for+the+three+SABC+stooges,+Harper,+S+Times



=It’s all doom and gloom for the SABC’s three stooges=


 * Paddy Harper, Sunday Times, 23 December 2007**

A day after the ANC presidential election results were announced, SABC chief executive Dali Mpofu told everybody who cared to listen at the conference’s networking lounge that he was going to resign his position.

This followed Jacob Zuma’s victory over President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday night. It’s everyone’s guess why Mpofu — who attends ANC conferences as a “deployed cadre” — was talking of resigning.

Those who were at the SABC’s makeshift studios at the conference venue told of the misery and dejection written all over the faces of the broadcaster’s news honchos. It was a sad day indeed.

According to many independent analysts, the broadcaster had become an integral part of the ANC’s dirty wars.

In the period running up to the Polokwane conference, almost all Mbeki’s key Cabinet ministers were given huge amounts of airtime to promote Mbeki’s campaign, but the same did not apply to Zuma’s camp.

On Friday, Cosatu was the first to fire shots, calling for the SABC’s leadership to either undergo a “change of heart” or resign over the propaganda role the public broadcaster’s television stations played in the ANC’s elections.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi described the SABC’s bias as “scandalous”, and identified Mpofu, head of news Snuki Zikalala and political editor Sophie Mokoena as being central to the SABC’s taking on of a propaganda role.

“The leadership of the SABC has to change their attitude or leave. We cannot live with people who think there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, who don’t see any bias in the skewed way things are being done,” Vavi said.

He also called on Mbeki not to approve the list of names for the SABC board which had been manipulated by the ANC leadership, who had overruled the names put forward by Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications.

“We need a return to the original list… Parliament had recommended before the heavy-handed intervention [by those] who want to turn it into another Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.”

On Friday night, however, Mbeki approved the list.


 * From: http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article.aspx?id=667326**

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