Sechaba ka’Nkosi
South African Broadcast Corporation (SABC) television news editor-in-chief designate Phillip Molefe describes his whole life as a strange coincidence prescribed by fate: he was born in Sharpeville exactly two years before the famous massacre in 1960 when police killed more than 69 anti-pass law protesters in the sprawling Vaal Triangle township.
He started schooling just at the time when Bantu Education was getting into full swing, and when he eventually graduated as a teacher in 1976, schools had become the site of the struggle against apartheid, and student organisations with a political agenda were gaining ground throughout the country.
This year Molefe inherits the SABC television news’ hottest seat from outgoing chief Allistair Sparks amid growing competition as the Independent Broadcast Authority (IBA) intensifies its programme to liberalise airwaves in South Africa.
Ironically, Molefe cut his teeth in journalism at the SABC as a trainee in television news broadcasting in 1981 after he became disillusioned with what he calls “education under apartheid”.
After an intensive training programme that lasted a year, Molefe became a reporter and eventually a sub-editor at the SABC – the highest position black journalists could hold at the SABC at that time.
He left the SABC three years later to pursue a successful career in print, starting off as a freelancer and moving into a full time appointment as a journalist at South African Student Paper.
In 1987 Molefe worked as a trainee at the Weekly Mail – the Mail & Guardian’s predecessor – and soon became an award- winning journalist.
Prior to his return to the SABC in 1994 as a senior political correspondent, Molefe was deputy editor of The Star.
He modestly defines his return to the SABC as a completion of his journalistic circle – a comeback to where it all began for him.
Molefe admits this could be a critical yet exciting time in broadcasting, but fears he may have to spend more time planning ahead of his competitors than worrying about his abilities to lead the SABCTV news into the new millennium.
“A point that needs to be made is that it is vitally important, as the broadcast sector opens up, that we strengthen our position in the news market. We need not only to be competitive, not only stimulating, but we need to be unchallegeably good at what we are doing,” says Molefe.
What Molefe has to deal with this time round is a completely different terrain in television broadcasting.
The SABC has already lost a bit of its advertising revenue to pay-channel M- Net. But the biggest threat to its survival will be provided by e.tv. The free channel is scheduled to start broadcasting nationally in October, exactly the time Molefe assumes his reign as head of SABCTV news.
What makes the new environment more difficult is that e.tv promises to give him the best challenge of his life – free broadcast to millions of South Africans when the SABC is still struggling to force pirate viewers to pay television licences.
Such thoughts have forced Molefe to spend the past few weeks applying his mind to a strategy that will make SABCTV a pace setter in television news and keep all its competitors guessing.
These thoughts were kept close to Molefe’s chest until a few days ago when the SABC’s ever-hard-to-please board summoned him to outline his vision, which comprises a five-pronged strategy.
Reluctantly he agreed to discuss it with the Mail & Guardian this week.
The key component is to assemble a team of talented journalists with incisive and analytical minds, introduce in-depth investigative journalism, challenge the emerging competition with a far more pro-active approach to news coverage, tell the South African story and the strategic co-ordination of all SABC bureaus from a central point.
“As a public broadcaster we have to be able to tell the story behind the story and get under the skin of what is happening, and explain why things happen the way they do and who benefits from it,” says Molefe.
“Simply put, this means transforming information into knowledge so that every South African is able to relate to new developments.”
Molefe refuses to entertain any thoughts of losing a cent to his rivals.
It is such determination that saw Molefe’s meteoric rise from a virtual unknown18 years ago to a powerful player in South Africa’s media circles.
He attributes his success mainly to his humble beginnings in the dusty streets of Sharpeville and his participation in community struggles in the mid-1980s which cost him two spells in detention under the emergency regulations.
“Life in the township or ghettos was full of dangers, and yet it afforded an intense sense of community as well as providing unique survival skills.”