EDITORIAL | It’s cloudy again at SABC and there won’t be sunshine ’til ANC’s gone

It’s groundhog day all over again at the SABC, where the editor-in-chief, a seasoned journalist with 20 years’ TV news experience, is fighting for her job after allegedly putting ANC snouts out of joint.

Things have been relatively civilised at the public broadcaster since the final departure of COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng in mid-2017, but the findings of a parliamentary ad hoc committee that year sound just as relevant in late 2021, after disciplinary charges were levelled against Phathiswa Magopeni.

Political meddling, unlawful dismissals and management interference in editorial decisions were among the problems MPs identified four years ago, and they are the same issues Magopeni highlighted this week when she submitted formal complaints about CEO Madoda Mxakwe and board chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini.

She said the men called her on October 24, a week before the local elections, and said ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe wanted a radio interview to be conducted with President Cyril Ramaphosa.  

For sound reasons easily comprehended by anyone with a basic grounding in media ethics, which require strict separation between management and editorial, Magopeni said she declined the request and that this is why she has been charged with negligence and bringing the SABC into disrepute.

Ostensibly, the charges relate to an episode of Special Assignment that was broadcast on October 26 in contravention of a court order. Magopeni said this error was made “three management levels below me” and that it is being used to “hound her out” of the SABC.

The SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) was quick to rally to Magopeni’s cause this week, demanding her disciplinary hearing be held in public and saying the SABC risked being “dragged back to the dark days of political control and manipulation”.

The warning appeared prescient, since the charges against the editor-in-chief followed a confrontation with ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte at the election results centre, which in turn sparked a complaint by Magopeni to the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC).

It’s a messy situation, but typical of what we’ve seen so often in the democratic era — the ANC continually struggling to break the apartheid government’s habit of treating the SABC as a state-funded propaganda tool.

Still, as in many other areas of life, progress over which politicians have little to no control is already levelling the playing field. While 68-year-old Duarte frets about a radio interview with the 69-year-old party leader, the young people of SA, most of whom didn’t bother to vote on November 1, are on TikTok.

The ANC could be there with them; all it needs is a phone and some young people who know how to use it, but take a look at its efforts on what is generally a highly entertaining social media platform and you’ll soon realise why the party is slowly perishing like an old tyre left to go flat under the weight of a broken-down skedonk.

It will be little consolation to Magopeni, who is fighting to save her reputation and career, but time is running out for public broadcasters in general, just as it is running out for fossilised thinking within political parties. 

While they play their political games, the media playing field is evolving in a way they have failed to observe or comprehend.

The days in which elections were won and lost on the strength of a radio interview are long gone. The future is young, digital, independent, diverse, vibrant and full of fresh ideas. Do the SABC and ANC have a place in it? Do they deserve one?