Robert Kirby
CHANNELVISION
I have this fear that at some stage, not too far into the South African future, a lot of people will be speaking the crude burlesque of English used in e.tv news bulletins. As a crucible of what might well be described “kitchen English”, there is no finer. Any bulletin from e.tv is a great welter of mispronunciation, crippled grammar, garbled idiom, local accents so sumptuous as to be incomprehensible.
When it comes to news style, well the most abject of British tabloids would cringe at the embarrassing verbal banter of the e.tv newswriters: “A knockout blow for boxing promoters” or “Doctors are being asked to take their own medicine” and the recent metaphoric own-goal: “Here the monkeys definitely rule the roost”.
The e.tv newswriters get even worse when they plough grimmer fields. In their coverage of the Marietta Bosch story they have demonstrated all the taste and sensitivity of a lavatory seat. No stoic wording like “the last execution in Botswana took place in …”; rather it was “the last time someone swung from the gallows in Botswana …” All this gibbet hyperbole was followed by yet another tour of the South African execution machinery. (If no longer used for its original purpose this place has become a sort of grotesque tourist attraction. As an heirloom of the “legacy of apartheid” surely the Pretoria gallows, like Robben Island, should be declared a World Heritage Site.)
I am willing to offer better than evens that should Marietta Bosch be executed, e.tv will be there on the appointed hour, right outside the prison in full gloat-mode. Any takers? e.tv news is, of course, not alone in its daily assaults on English. It’s just that it is by far the worst. The SABC, in both radio and television, launches its own mortars with regular frequency. Surely this harsh abuse of language must fall within the purview of the education department it is a waste of time expecting something from whatever smug battery has replaced the Independent Broadcast Authority. The broadcasters, themselves, clearly have no intention of smartening up their act and someone needs to step in (I hope you are reading this, Asmal). While the effect of all this crude jargon on spoken language cannot be measured in statistical agreements, it is surely immense.
Radio and television are daily tutors of spoken language. Entire generations across the world have accepted as exemplary the English used on the BBC’s external services, which is why the BBC has always been very particular about the standard of any of the languages used in its global broadcasts. There is slim hope of any change to the squalid tastes of our television news stations, but they need to be reminded that, if nothing else, a sense of social responsibility comes with the licence. Unless of course there is a masked agenda at play: that the broadcasters and their new bosses have decided that human communication by means of an evolved and subtle language like English is unnecessary and needs to be replaced with a pidgin edition. (Before I’m accused of racism let me emphasise that among the worst offenders are the Afrikaans reporters.) Perhaps it’s that English is just too difficult for the readers and writers, but try to imagine the squalls of indignation were languages like Xhosa or Sotho reduced in the broadcast news bulletins to Fanakalo.
The risible SABC political talk show, Newsmaker, last Sunday again flashed its true colours. If you think the SABC of Piet Meyer’s yore was biased, take a look at this weekly parody of fair comment.
Last Sunday the reliably dubious Mr Tony Yengeni was holding forth on how pristine are the African National Congress’s motives in the current arms-deal investigation. In this task Yengeni was ably aided and abetted by studio chair Vuyo Mbuli. Douglas Gibson of the Democratic Alliance was the token opposing voice, awarded only five minutes to Yengeni’s 15. While Yengeni pontificated Mbuli maintained a devout silence. When Gibson tried to dispute some of Yengeni’s fatuous bullshit, Mbuli interrupted him, hassled him, made sure he didn’t finish sentences, in general behaved like a party lickspittle.
Closing off the Newsmaker show was another kind of token in the horrible shape of Mr Alec Erwin. Playing Big Ears to Mbuli’s Noddy, Alec took it upon himself to rebut something Gibson has said in the previous interview knowing of course that Gibson wasn’t there to defend himself. Brings a completely new meaning to brownie points, does our Alec.