Ferial Haffajee
Investigative journalists Max du Preez and Jacques Pauw have been commissioned to produce a weekly investigative programme for the SABC.
“Special Assignment will carry on the tradition of TRC Special Report,” says Du Preez. His weekly programme on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and related issues has kept the probe into the country’s past at the top of the news agenda. It has achieved consistently strong audience ratings, a factor the team hopes to capitalise on with the programme which will fill the gap when TRC Special Report ends.
Special Assignment, to air from July, plans to undertake contemporary investigations. “It would be easy to go for the old stuff,” says Du Preez. “There’ll be some of that because there are some outstanding investigations. But we want to keep a healthy watch on the private sector and [state] bureaucracy.”
Investigative journalism is an expensive craft, which is why there is little of it in South Africa. Du Preez says criminal trends like farm murders and highway heists need probes which he believes his team can provide.
In addition to Pauw, the other full-time member of the team will be Anneliese Burgess, also from TRC Special Report. All three worked at the Vrye Weekblad, the Afrikaans independent weekly which uncovered some of this country’s best- hidden scandals, including the underworld of police death squads.
That world of state-sanctioned murder intersects with diamond deals, prostitution and shady business and it has provided the backdrop for fine documentaries which paved the way for the new programme.
Du Preez and Pauw believe they would not have been given the thumbs-up if there wasn’t a new order at SABC TV. “Allister Sparks [SABC TV’s editor-in-chief] has put current affairs back on the agenda,” says Du Preez.
He’s happy with the new relationship they will have with the SABC. The programme will use the broadcaster’s facilities like cameras and editing suites, and SABC journalists will be seconded to the team to do investigative news programmes for which they don’t have space on news bulletins.