Andrew Culf
THE BBC has ordered a rethink of all its news programmes from Newsnight to Radio 4’s Today in a move which could herald significant changes for viewers and listeners.
The programme strategy review is the biggest overhaul of the BBC’s news output for 10 years.
It could lead to some shows being axed and others being revamped to ensure they keep pace with audience expectations.
Under particular scrutiny will be the presentation of the flagship television news programmes, with the news readers – “predominantly middle-aged” – according to some critics -anchored in isolation in a studio.
The BCC’s Six O’ Clock News is under scrutiny because Michael Jackson, controller of BBC1, is keen to revamp the early evening schedule.
One option is a 60-minute magazine programme incorporating international, national and regional news, although the BBC denies it is going to reinvent Nationwide, an integral part of British tea-time in the 1970s. Nationwide, which ran for 14 years before being axed in 1983, included regional outputs, serious current affairs and lighter bites on such subjects as skate-boarding ducks.
A new 6pm show is likely to eschew Nationwide’s obsession with trivia and the British eccentric, but BBC bosses would like to attract a similar younger and less upmarket audience.
BBC News chief executive Tony Hall said of the review: “It is about understanding our audiences, across radio and television, and how we can better serve them, particularly those we are currently under-serving.”
BBC news programmes, at the moment, tend to “superserve” the upmarket, AB socio-economic classes.
Current research shows that audiences shrink from the argumentative approach to politics and preoccupation with Westminster.
The review will also be seeking new programme ideas and broadening the agenda to include business programmes.
Programme-makers will be involved in the review and the overhaul is expected to be carried out from late May, after the general election, and will involve BBC1, BBC2, Radio4 and Radio 5 Live.
@LETTERS
The big holes in the Lund report
THE statements quoted in Marion Edmunds’ article “Move to give welfare only to poorest opposed” (January 31 to February 6) can be seriously misunderstood. We are, of course, concerned about the people who are presently receiving money and who will be deprived of government help in future.
Nevertheless, we acknowledge the fact that the government has no choice but to change the present system. From our research, to which the article refers, it is clear that to reach equity within the old system, it would require at least R18,8-billion per year. Furthermore, the present system discriminates against poor children not living in single-parent households. Here the Lund report offers a far more sensitive solution: it proposes support for “all” children in a defined age group.
As good as this might sound, this is just the point where the recommendations are inconsistent and fall short of their own objective. The Lund report expects that with their preferred system (R2-billion budget, pay-out of R125 up to children of nine years) only 12% of the children in that age group will get support. However, our research shows that 68% of all children within this age group live with a care-giver who earns less than R250 per month. The point of criticism therefore is not, as the article suggests, that welfare will only be given to the poorest, but that the recommendations in their minimalist approach will only reach a minority group within the poorest! (And this is not even mentioning that the Lund report has absolutely no practical suggestion of how to select this group.)
The crucial issue is whether it should be taken for granted, given the government’s commitment to reprioritise the budget, that the present level of expenditure is the maximum available. Should not more be spent on such a basic poverty alleviation programme for all children in South Africa? Taking account of financial constraints, our research examines an alternative: if all children up to six years are supported with R135 per month with a means-test which excludes care-givers earning more than R800 per month (meaning 83% of all children would get support), the estimated costs for the first year would be R1,4-billion and within five years they would reach R6,5-billion. This would equal the amount the government is at the moment spending on old-age pensions. It is obvious that the suggested system, important as it is, does not address the structural problem of children in poverty.
In order to draw on other resources, there is a call on the government to implement a community fund in addition to the grant system. This fund could be accessible to non-governmental organisations and religious groups in order to take this money as “seed money” to implement projects targeted at the root causes of children in poverty. Potentially, such a programme for children in need could also draw in money from the business sector.
The Lund report is further problematic as it bases its recommendations on questionable data, which over-estimates the number of children in South Africa and under-estimates the present budget allocation to the maintenance grant system at the moment. – Claudia and Dirk Haarmann, Institute for Social Development, University of the Western Cape
Bengu’s big-shot brigade fails all subjects
WHO is Valerie Viljoen, MP? A Military Policewoman? If MP stands for member of Parliament, Viljoen must be the obscurest backbencher in the African National Congress.
Be that as it may, her attempt to sing hosannas to Sibusiso Bengu (Letters, January 17 to 23) is utterly laughable. She cites the South African Schools Bill as a monument to Bengu. It is a cosy little bolt-hole: the Bill itself employs all those typically broad brushstrokes in which the ANC excels: cute buzz-words like “empowering”, “redressing imbalances”, “democratic transformation”, blah, blah, blah.
But look at the actual, real-life results of Bengu’s sloganistic legislation: the most-competent teachers of all races and locations are deserting their beloved profession in their tens of thousands. They have voted with their feet in a massive show of no-confidence in Bengu.
Bengu and his big-shot brigade have shoved them about like a farmer herding cattle. They have to live under a sword of Damocles until the year 2000 as Bengu’s dull bean-counters crudely “rightsize” education and cut the government’s salary bill to teachers. After all, the ANC now also has to use my tax money to pay huge pensions to “struggle veterans” and wages to unelected and illiterate chiefs, none of whom represent me, the taxpayer, or my interests.
Viljoen may score a few sympathy points from naive readers who are encouraged by her type of misinformation to think that Bengu’s opponents are all white racists who once taught in “privileged” Model C schools. In reality, the bulk of the “package takers” are black teachers from the townships.
Viljoen, Bengu is quickly “transforming” high schooling into dysfunctional, useless trash. The 1996 matric exam fiasco is just the beginning of a long, dark nightmare that even a naive little Pollyanna like you will ultimately come to recognise. This incompetent, arrogant man did not deserve a 1 out of 10 on his report. – Jack Freeman, Tokai, Cape Town
‘Snide’ approach unwarranted
MAJOR General Jackie Sedibe,”the country’s highest-ranking woman in the military” deserves better that the appallingly snide and incoherent rubbish afforded her by Angella Johnson (“The matron of the military, January 24 to 30).
The piece bridles with insulting sexism, breathtaking from a woman writer whose determination not to be accused of being “soft” on the African National Congress takes us back to the redbaiting pre-1994 period.
Journalism here has moved on and readers have come to expect some depth and cogency from the M&G. Sedibe is not Princess Diana and Johnson should not turn the M&G into the News of the World.
Sedibe is a woman of great integrity, modesty and courage. She could have succumbed as a triple-oppressed victim of apartheid – a black woman from the lowliest of social strata. Instead she struggled and has triumphed heroically, with a strength and dignity all South African women can proudly acclaim. – Stephanie Kemp, Durban
Environmental council slack
AS a taxpayer and long-time resident of the Lowveld, I am concerned about the role of the Mpumalanga Environmental Council, which has existed for almost a year at great cost to the provincial government.
To my knowledge, the council, merely an advisory body, is largely comprised of people who are not qualified environmentalists, none are experienced in conservation, and several are not from Mpumalanga.
There undoubtedly exists a need for an environmental watchdog. However, this one is apparently without teeth and has only a selective bark. The broad environmental issues in the province, air pollution, water quality, open-cast mining and so on appear not to have been addressed.
It appears to me that the only issue on which the council has taken a stand, and done so in a singularly non-constructive way, has been that of the Mpumalanga Parks Board deal with the Dolphin group. An initiative which will result in much-needed investment in, and development for, the province.
I would suggest that while the council members have derived personal income from the provincial exchequer, the council has done very little to earn it. Perhaps the council could publish in the press, for the enlightenment of its constituency, its achievements during the past year and thereby demonstrate its competence or otherwise. – Josef Fourie, Nelspruit
Shakespeare farted, too
NOTWITHSTANDING Pauline Podbrey’s tantrum (Letters, January 31 to February 3) regarding – in her view – Chris Roper’s slur on Shakespeare’s impeccable feminism, early 17th-century English culture was in important respects deeply misogynist. There is evidence of this in all of Shakespeare’s plays.
Thus, while it is true that in The Winter’s Tale Hermione and Paulina both struggle impressively against a dominant patriarchy, it is also true that their efforts are contained. At the end of the play the aristocrats are gathered in Paulina’s home. The home was the only place where women, beyond the masculinist Elizabeth I, had any power at all in 16th- and 17th-century England – but one of an obvious kind! Hermione is restored to Leontes via the image of a classical, asexual statue. She also remains silent and therefore in practice submissive to her master at the end of the play, acceptable only as a reinstated madonna figure within the patriarchal madonna-whore binary.
Podbrey’s chagrin at the apparent disrespect in Roper’s thoughtful and witty review for her picnicking Maynardville co-celebrants and their “proper” adulation for her “perfect” Bard is more upsetting. Why can’t traditionalist Shakespeareans in South Africa, albeit in this case in “feminist” guise, abandon their pernicious bardolatrous trivialisation of Shakespeare’s plays? Shakespeare was part of his own culture and world, indeed like other humans also had pimples and dare we say it, when need be, farted. – Martin Orkin, University of the Witwatersrand
BRIEFLY
I AM convinced that Diana, the Princess of Wales, did, at one stage – before her divorce from Prince Charles – visit Egypt. I am, therefore, left confounded by Ruaridh Nicoll’s assertion (” ‘Princess of peace’ in Angola”, January 17 to 23) that Diana’s trip to Angola “was Diana’s first trip to Africa”.
My fervent hope is that Nicoll does not belong to the school that believes Egypt is not part of Africa. Such school of thought has even gone to the extent of ascribing the building of the pyramids and a lot of other evidence of advanced “ancient” Egyptian technology to aliens from space. South Africa surely needs to steer clear of such post-colonial nonsense. – Gabanne Modise, Gaborone, Botswana
* Ruaridh Nicoll replies: Gabanne Modise is right in fact, but happily wrong in interpretation. I asked the princess if she had visited Africa before and she said no. The fact that she has actually visited a number of African countries might allow Modise to aim his comments at her.
BONGANI NDODANA writes (“A composer’s lament”, January 17 to 23) regarding the sword of Damocles which is poised over our orchestras, and asks the question: “Why is there this infatuation with dead old German men?”
Firstly, Mr Ndodana, they are not dead. They are immortal.
Secondly, sir, because they are there.
Leigh Mallory said that about mountains. It’s like asking “Why this infatuation with the mountains of South-East Asia?” Have the world’s mountain-climbers got something against the Drakensberg?
No. But there the Himalayan mountains stand. Massive. Majestic. Magnificent. Awesome. – C Donald Bertelsen, Athlone, Cape
WHILE not doubting your good intentions, I find your recent advice to the Democratic Party amazing (“Cabinet of co-option”, January 24 to 30). You appear to suggest that the party, small as it is, has such an important role to play that an untoward decision on its part regarding a possible Cabinet position could threaten multi-party democracy. What a ridiculous idea! A party that wields such influence would surely attract more media attention – especially from a publication like yours.
The reality is that the media do not give the DP much coverage, even when its public representatives raise valid issues, highlight real problems, and produce innovative solutions. And, as I have seen almost no mention of the DP in previous issues, I really don’t understand what prompted such advice. I would suggest that the leadership of the DP take advice from those sources more obviously interested in the welfare of the party. – Barbara Robertson, Honeydew