WATCH LIVE | SABC officials back in the state capture hot seat

The SABC's Joseph Nong Thloloe will be in the hot seat to give testimony at the Zondo commission on Friday. 

SABC head of news Phathiswa Magopeni told the state capture inquiry on Tuesday that she found a newsroom that was on "auto-pilot" when she was appointed to the position in March 2018.

"Getting into that environment I found decay, a serious state of decay. It was subdued, but you could sense that the kind of equilibrium companies would be hoping for is not the kind of equilibrium I found there," she said.

"There was something bubbling underneath. The newsroom was on auto-pilot."

Magopeni said the nature of the leadership there did not help journalists do what they  needed to do.

"You had people who were supposed to lead the newsroom who were not trusted by journalists. They had no legitimacy or did not command the necessary authority to be trusted by journalists in the newsroom," Magopeni said.

The public broadcaster's Fhatuwani Lastborn Mutuvhi is also expected to give testimony on Friday.