In its 10-year existence about 7 000 complaints have been laid with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. Mine on December 13 was the first about, essentially, censorship. Most of the rest have focused on offensive sex and bad language.
The score (7 000 to 1) does not bode well for another generation of ‘we-didn’t-know†South Africans. This is because they really won’t know if their source of news is what the public broadcaster chooses to let them watch and listen to. It doesn’t reflect well on the guardians of our new broadcasting era in the form of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, the Media Monitoring Project and the commission itself.
They could have asked themselves before now about the nature of complaints received compared with the lessons and priorities of our broadcasting history.
But the prime and consistent offender against the core values of the rebirth of broadcasting in South Africa is the SABC, as illustrated by my complaint to the commission.
This was that the SABC had failed to follow up the story broken in the press on November 29, that the deputy president was being investigated by the Scorpions on allegations of attempting to secure a bribe from French defence giant Thomson-CSF.
The response from the commission was that the complaint did not fall within its jurisdiction, and had been referred therefore to the SABC. The SABC’s general manager: policy and regulatory affairs advised that the corporation had, in fact, reported the allegations, adding that they remained just that. There was no elaboration of when, where or how the story had been reported.
As I had reason to mention later at the appeal hearing, the investigation was not an allegation but documented and confirmed fact. Was this not news? Here there was some muttering by the SABC representative that the Scorpions were not unknown to have made mistakes.
Underwhelmed, one could only telephone for clarification of the commission’s stance, which, it transpired, was that it was there to consider complaints about what had been broadcast, not what had not been. I appealed, on the grounds that it was what was not broadcast that constituted censorship, which should be of concern for the commission. In addition, perusal of the Internet indicated that there was nothing in the commission’s constitution or code that precluded its consideration of what was not broadcast.
Indeed, the commission exists ‘in order to promote freedom of speech [and] the free flow of informationâ€. How does it do that if it does not consider information that is not allowed to flow?
It is capable, according to its constitution, of all acts necessary to carry out its objectives. How then can it not look at allegations of censorship, let alone examine and act on them? The commission’s code says ‘news shall be presented … without any intentional or negligent departure from the facts by … material omissionâ€. The commission quickly agreed to an appeal hearing, held on January 23.
After being notified of the granting of appeal, I had on three occasions asked through the commission that the SABC provide me (before the hearing) with details of the coverage it claimed it had given to the story. This in terms of the quid pro quo onus laid on complainants; as well as the transparency and service obligations of any organisation; and the Access to Information Act.
I had been informed that all this would be addressed on the day. On the day, the SABC’s representative claimed she had had only three days’ notice of the case, which gives us an idea of the SABC organisation, priorities, care and sense of public duty. However, she said she had the assurance of radio news that the story was amply covered. Details would follow.
In the meantime she was able to table an SABC Internet story for news broadcast, critically dated November 29. Radio details would follow as promised but, no, it was not broadcast on television. She added that there were a number of considerations here, like the right of response by the person concerned: in this case the deputy president, who was overseas and could not be contacted. In addition, as a medium, television was reliant on relevant pictures, which were not available at short notice.
Of course this was nonsense. Any trainee television news editor could direct someone to extract visual footage from the archives. And while journalistic ethics require an attempt to contact the person involved for comment, this could be done by phone. Failing which we make the standard comment that attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.
There was worse to come. In the SABC’s Internet story of November 29, the deputy president had in fact been contacted and denied the allegations. There was then no excuse for the story not having been used. Unless it was to be argued that revelations of the deputy president being investigated by the country’s top law enforcement unit for allegedly soliciting a bribe were not considered newsworthy.
That is the crux of my case, and of any similarly difficult case to be made against broadcasters by the public. It has to pinpoint information undeniably newsworthy. The root of the complaint must be so clear as to limit legitimate professional degrees of choice. Do that and there is still the ultimate SABC defence. Yes, we erred and we will slap that news editor on the wrist.
By now we know that we are not only going to have to win a case against the odds, we are going to have to establish that it is part of a pattern that constitutes censorship.
Pat Rogers is programme and production manager of Catholic station Radio Veritas. He writes in his personal capacity