Sechaba ka’Nkosi
The SABC could be in for another restructuring drive following the appointment of The Star’s deputy editor Mathata Tsedu as the broadcaster’s deputy head of news this week.
Tsedu was officially appointed to the position on Tuesday, and Robin Nicolson, was appointed chief financial officer.
SABC insiders this week interpreted the appointment as strategic, and in line with an internal audit recommendation that called for the flattening of the news division hierarchy.
But staffers are concerned that the position of deputy head of news was not advertised either internally or externally.
Tsedu was offered the position at the SABC last year, but turned it down. He refused to discuss why he had accepted the position this week, or disclose his blueprint for news management.
A senior SABC senior journalist said: ”There is so much anxiety at the top at the moment. No one knows what is going to happen to them. We are living each day as it comes.”
The appointment casts doubts on the future of prominent SABC news managers such as former acting head of news Snuki Zikalala, who has been apparently sidelined since the news restructuring drive took shape late last year.
With his boss Barney Mthombothi, Tsedu is tasked with crushing power blocs that have characterised the public broadcaster in the past four years.
SABC group chief executive Peter Matlare described the appointment as a continuation of a process aimed at filling senior management positions with highly skilled people
Said Matlare: ”Tsedu has more than two decades of experience in media and I believe he will make an immediate contribution to the quality and treatment of news.”
Born and raised in Venda, the 49-year-old father of four started working as a journalist in 1978 when at The Post the forerunner to the Sowetan as a correspondent in the Northern Province.
His meteoric rise to the management began in 1998, when he was appointed deputy editor of The Sunday Independent, before being appointed to the similar position at The Star a year later.
Rumour has it that Tsedu tendered his resignation at The Star this week after a fallout with Independent Group CEO Ivan Fallon over his readiness to take over at the helm of the paper.