Janet Smith
Anand Naidoo’s final appearance as a news anchor on the SABC will be on August 22, a few weeks before he becomes part of the slick CNN International media machine run by Time Warner chair Gerald Levin and vice- chair Ted Turner.
Naidoo leaves his high-visibility post on the English bulletins of the most powerful, if seriously embattled, broadcaster on the continent, to go behind the scenes of the global news powerhouse as a producer.
It’s tough, if prized, employment he has accepted after more than 18 months of waiting on an offer following his first introduction to CNN’s talent scouts on an American junket in 1995.
Allister Sparks’s SABC news operation which elected Naidoo to join its elite task team when the old order collapsed, doesn’t compare with the hardcore Atlanta hub of CNN International. And Naidoo admits he is somewhat intimidated, although he has limited experience working abroad, specifically on Belgium radio and TV.
Naturally his bosses at the SABC were not thrilled by the news of his plum CNN appointment, and chief executive officer Zwelakhe Sisulu would have preferred him to stay amid the deep uncertainty that journalists face ahead of further cutbacks and increasing commercialisation later this year.
Naidoo says he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to “enter a field which is highly competitive, where I will have to make decisions about what goes into CNN’s news, working from the newsdesk in Atlanta.
“I kept people at the SABC informed as far as possible,” he says, “but it was clear they were unhappy about my leaving.”
Naidoo is expecting to pay a hefty ransom for his prize: liaising with top anchors and correspondents in getting hard news out to the world undoubtedly means entering a pressure zone unlike any he has yet experienced.
The CNN job places him at the core of international news recruitment – a very different environment to the SABC newsroom which necessarily favours a parochial slant.
“It’s a little frightening packing up to go,” he concedes. “Not least because one has to leave familiar things behind, and live and work in a place you don’t know.”
Yet, like his on-camera CNN hero, Riz Khan – who presents the rapid-fire Q&A debate forum and who contributed extensively to the network’s coverage of the British general election and the handover of Hong Kong to China – Naidoo has cracked it.
Khan was lifted out of the BBC’s grasp to worldwide fame.
Naidoo may yet achieve the same close attention, but he’s not counting on securing a position as an anchor; initially, he wants to feed his energies into producing as much as possible.