SABC told to stop interrupting broadcast

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was on Tuesday ordered to air a summary of a judgment by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa in favour of the Mail & Guardian.

Read the judgement

The broadcaster had been seeking to delay airing a judgment that it had contravened the broadcasting code until after an appeal to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC).

In its 7pm news bulletin on November 3 last year, the SABC aired an insert that alleged corruption and racism on the part of a Sam Sole, a senior M&G reporter.

In it, businessman Robert Gumede claimed Sole had received corrupt payments in 2001, when working for investigative magazine noseweek, from businessman John Sterenborg. Gumede said this had influenced Sole’s subsequent coverage of Gumede in the M&G.

“Here’s a payment, one of the first payments that Sterenborg made out to a journalist ...

who goes out to attack black people, to say that they are corrupt, they bribe people ...” Gumede said.

The insert failed to include the M&G‘s explanation, which was that “the payment” concerned Sterenborg’s reimbursement of Sole for a R900 air ticket Sole had paid for himself.

BCCSA chairperson Jacobus Van Rooyen, SC, ordered the SABC3 to broadcast the summary within seven days of his judgment—which at the latest is during the 7pm news bulletin on June 28.

He said the SABC did not have the right to approach the CCC. He said this right was only available to complainants, who in this case, were the M&G and Sole.

Van Rooyen should the broadcaster choose not to broadcast the summary, the BCCSA would be obliged to inform Icasa. He said it should be stated that the SABC had “an unblemished record” of compliance with the BCCSA orders since its inception in 1993.

Kaizer Kganyago, SABC spokesperson, told the M&G on Tuesday that the broadcaster’s lawyers would study the judgment, “and then advise us on the way forward”.