Cosatu to SABC: 'Tell the South African story uncensored‚ warts and all'

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has waded into the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) “censorship” debate‚ urging the public broadcaster to tell the South African story “warts and all”.

The union said it was troubled by‚ and rejected‚ the broadcaster’s decision to cease showing images of property destruction during service delivery protests.

“We call on the SABC board to reconsider this decision and allow the public broadcaster to tell the South African story uncensored‚ warts and all‚” said a statement issued by national spokesman Sizwe Pamla on Monday.

“While the federation totally condemns violent protests and wants all perpetrators of such anarchy and vandalism to be investigated‚ prosecuted and sent to prison‚ we do not want the sanitisation of the news to hide the reality. It is not the public broadcaster's mandate to mask the challenges that this country is facing and gag itself from exposing people's anger‚ including their criminality.”

Cosatu said the decision “smacks of autocracy and its deeply patronising” because it assumed that citizens were “impressionable and imbecilic” who needed protection from certain visuals “lest they copy and repeat them”.

“We are not a nanny state and therefore do not need an overprotective public broadcaster to take care of us.

“What we have seen and learned is that once censorship starts it never stops because those who are empowered to censor and impose blackouts start to develop bottomless sensitivities and discover more activities that they feel should not be flighted on television.

“The fight against apartheid was also against censorship and news sanitisation and this decision cannot be allowed to stand‚” said the union.

If the banning decision was not reversed‚ the union warned‚ it would signal a journey into the unknown where “public broadcaster mandarins are empowered to manipulate news coverage and blacklist organisations‚ individuals and communities without any transparency and accountability”.

- TMG Digital