The TRC Special Report is slim on resources but big on ideas, writes Gustav Thiel
The team responsible for television’s award-winning TRC Special Report is watching the latest edition of their programme at the Brixton, Johannesburg home of one of the producers.
Situated just under the SABC’s huge transmission tower, the room is quiet as the producers become the viewers. Every detail is scrutinised and dissected; this weekly sojourn into the cavities of South Africa’s apartheid soul has taken over their lives.
A shaky camera shot is met with giggles of disapproval. Inane matters like executive producer Max Du Preez’s dress sense are discussed, but when they talk about the programme there is no time for jocularity.
They pull no punches; the lines between good and bad do not blur easily with those whose business is truth. Madikizela-Mandela is not highly regarded. “But then again, a lot of people we covered in our programmes are dubious,” says producer Anneliese Burgess. “There are good people coming forward through the process. Just ordinary people who suffered in silence all these years and now we can tell their stories.”
The programme was first aired in April last year when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) started tracking the atrocities of the country’s past.
After the first two weeks, the original team collapsed. Many were too shocked by the intensity of the first testimonies and the burden of two more years covering the truth commission loomed too large.
Du Preez stayed on as executive producer, determined to document every moment, and he drafted in a different team.
The TRC Special Report is compiled by Du Preez and his producers, Anneliese Burgess, Jann Turner, Benedict Motau, Gael Reagon, Rene Schiebe and production assistant Bronwyn Nicholson.
Reagon confesses that the programme has taken its toll on her and she recently decided to take two weeks off to recharge her emotional batteries. “It’s a big responsibility, but the stress just creeps up on you,” she says. Turner, who returned to South Africa from Britain, took several months off to write a book. She is now back with the Special Report, but confesses that she needed a break from it.
The team says it is burdened with a taxing workload, having to work with a tight budget and limited staff. “Look, no other television network will ever attempt a programme of this magnitude with a staff of only seven people, but my team is incredibly dedicated.
“All these people from CNN and Sky news came for the Winnie hearings and stayed in five star hotels eating caviar before producing little inserts. But they have to rely on us for their pictures and invariably they are happy, but they don’t realise how tight our budget is.
“We work seven days of the week almost every week, and apart from the odd social drink on a Sunday after the programme is aired, we have virtually no social lives. But somehow we struggle on and try to produce a quality effort every week,” says Du Preez.
The programme has become something of a money-spinner: it is sold to 22 international networks to supplement its budget. The SABC could not provide details of the budget, but it is clear that, with only two cameras and primitive editing equipment, money isn’t in large supply.
“It is fair to say that our budget is limited, but the people working on the programme are incredibly dedicated,” says Burgess.
The Madikizela-Mandela programme last Sunday drew positive responses from the print media contingent covering the commission. One journalist compared it to the OJ Simpson courtroom drama in the United States.
“That is exactly what we tried to achieve,” says Du Preez. “That sense of intimate drama works very well with a dubious character like Madikizela-Mandela.”
The Special Report team says it is reluctant to discuss the emotional stress of the programme at length.
“In the end we chose to do this job and we have to live with the consequences. Ultimately, we all think the compromises are worthwhile and therefore we will stick it out until the end,” says Du Preez.
The Special Report team says the hearing into the attacks by the Azanian People’s Liberation Army members on the St James Church and Heidelberg Tavern in Cape Town, the Eastern Cape amnesty hearings and the Northern Transvaal death squad hearings were the most harrowing to cover, although the resulting catharsis for people who lost family and friends through the attacks provided the team with their most satisfying professional moments. But now the special hearings into Madikizela- Mandela have eclipsed other high moments.
All five producers intend to stay in television after they finish their stint next year, but say they would probably struggle to emulate the intensity of covering the commission.
Du Preez and Burgess will publish a book in 1998 on the commission. Du Preez’s long career in journalism will end after that and he plans to settle permanently on his farm near Ficksburg in the Free State, tending his pigs and hoping that there are young journalists “with courage to take on the establishment”.
TRC Special Report’s new time slot is Sundays between 6-7pm. Awards won this year by the team are the Pringle Award and the Foreign Correspondent’s Award for Journalism