SABC staff: ‘All have forsaken us’
In a last-ditch bid to highlight their grievances, broadcast journalists are gambling with their jobs
Journalists at the SABC this week took to the streets and social media to protest against management’s interference with news coverage because, their peers say, getting the public on their side is seen as their very last resort.
The public broadcaster teetered on the edge of full-blown rebellion — but seemed to pull back from it — earlier this week after acting chief executive and head of news Jimi Matthews resigned, saying the “prevailing, corrosive atmosphere has impacted negatively on my moral judgment”.
Other SABC managers denied there was any trouble and, after publishing his resignation letter, Matthews remained silent despite being heavily criticised by both the ANC and Communications Minister Faith Muthambi, among others.
The SABC staffers at the centre of the storm said Matthews was just one more individual who had abandoned them, as had all the mechanisms of democracy.
“Even if he had his Damascus moment, now that he’s on the outside, why isn’t he using his voice?” asked one staffer.
The same employee said the parliamentary oversight committee that theoretically holds ultimate authority over the SABC “collapsed a long time ago”.
An SABC journalist said even the public protector — who had managed to bring President Jacob Zuma to account for the Nkandla spending — had proved powerless when it came to the SABC.
“Thuli [Madonsela] said Hlaudi [Motsoeneng, chief operating officer] had to go. He’s still here. She can’t stop him. The president can’t stop him. You want us to stand up to him?”
A number of journalists, producers and editors to whom the Mail & Guardian spoke insisted on anonymity, mostly for fear of reprisals. Because they have dependents to support they were not willing to gamble with their livelihoods, one said.
Even as frustrations with the SABC boiled over, those very fears seemed to deny a few openly protesting staff the public support of most of their fellows. “People are operating in a climate of fear,” one said.
Staff have a range of grievances, but all cite as their primary concern Motsoeneng’s usurping of editorial control, sometimes publicly — as with the ban on broadcasting footage of protesters burning public property — and sometimes from behind the scenes.
In previous years there have been attempts to put a lid on portraying the ANC in a poor light on SABC platforms, one said, but editors opposed such moves and eventually won the day. This time, they say, it is different.
“We have a protest right outside our building; we can see it from the window. Then we’re told: ‘No, you must not look at that,’ ” said one, referring to an apparent ban on covering a protest centred on Motsoeneng’s editorial decisions.
“Before, there were attempts to steer us but there was never a ban on dissent. Now you say: ‘We must cover that’, and they throw you out the building.”
One staffer said the pressure to portray the country as being in good shape had been increasing noticeably as the local government elections approached.
This mainly applied to the television news division, he said, with slightly less focus on the Englishlanguage services that were mostly consumed in urban areas. Vernacular radio stations and others with a more rural reach were in effect free of editorial interference, he added. The Mail & Guardian, in conjunction with the Freedom of Expression Institute, Media Monitoring Africa and the SOS Coalition, is calling on SABC employees to tell their stories — both good and bad.
Through extensive interviews and informal conversations this week, it became clear that many in the SABC won’t speak publicly for fear of repercussions.
Almost wholly absent from the public discussion about the SABC are the stories of upstanding journalists, who are determined to serve democracy by working in the organisation, and those who remain fiercely loyal to their employer.
It is those stories we wish to hear, as well as stories of managers interfering in editorial decisions and stories of good work done under difficult circumstances. Whistle-blowers are always welcome and proof of malfeasance is important, but so is everyday experience.
To assure anonymity, staffers can use the Afrileaks.org platform to communicate with us.
Afrileaks is a joint project of the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting, the Hermes Centre for Transparency and Digital Human Rights.
It uses state-of-the-art means to protect whistle-blowers’ identities not only from those who might be monitoring or intercepting communications but also from the M&G, if necessary. —