Reality is closing in on the SABC's top management, in particular COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng, until recently believed to be untouchable.ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe yesterday warned the broadcaster's managers that they were mistaken to believe that no one could tell them what decisions they could or could not take.Mantashe - speaking to reporters following Monday's meeting of the party's national working committee - said the broadcaster would be the subject of "urgent attention" by the ANC caucus in parliament.The national working committee put its weight behind the decision by the party's communications sub-committee to denounce the SABC's decision not to broadcast images of protesters burning public property. Mantashe said the SABC was doing a disservice to South Africans by filtering the news."An ignorant society cannot be a democratic society. Someone should whisper in the ears of the people at the SABC that they cannot be like bulls in a china shop."To think they cannot be touched is a very mistaken view," said Mantashe."We're hoping the SABC will realise that defying calls by society will not make it a better public broadcaster."Mantashe's comments were made after Motsoeneng said on Monday that the corporation would defy the ruling of the Independent Communications Authority of SA that it reverse its decision not to air images of protesters destroying property. The SABC was given seven days from Monday to confirm to Icasa that it had implemented the ruling.But Motsoeneng and SABC board chairman Mbulaheni Maguvhe said the regulator's ruling would be taken on review, possibly in the Constitutional Court.Until then, the SABC ban would stand.Right2Know campaign organisers said yesterday that the Icasa ruling was one win in a larger campaign.They said Motsoeneng remained "deaf to the massive public outcry against the censorship, purges, propaganda, cronyism and financial mismanagement that have come to define the SABC". The DA yesterday said it would ask the Supreme Court of Appeal to deny the petitions of the SABC board and Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi for leave to appeal the setting aside by the Cape Town High Court of Motsoeneng's appointment as permanent COO of the SABC.The party said that, given recent events, Motsoeneng and the SABC should end their "vexatious litigation".The SA National Editors' Forum welcomed Icasa's ruling, saying the SABC's decision to censor the news threatened to return it to the dark days of apartheid...