Television viewers in South Africa, because of SABC reporter Renee Horne, will probably remember the illegal invasion of Iraq for a while. This is in part because Horne took to pronouncing Baghdad in what I suppose is its correct Arabic or Iraqi pronunciation it sounds like Bahidud. But its also in part because, perhaps for the first time in a major war of this nature, we had a young South African woman right in the thick of it. (One should not forget Paula Slier the SABCs woman in the Middle East although she was in the relative safety of Israel).
The interesting thing about SABC and e.TV coverage of the war was that, to a large degree, it was influenced by South Africas spirited attempt to avert conflict by playing shuttle diplomacy for a pro-peace position. The effort was well covered by the two channels in particular the SABC, which gave significant news airtime to South Africas nuclear disarmament experts and Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahads mission to Baghdad. The SABC also covered the labours of South Africas ambassador to the US, Dumisani Khumalo, as he pushed for more inspection time at the UN debates. It is important to note that as a public broadcaster (and like most public and state broadcasters including the BBC) the SABC broadly reflects the foreign policy position of the government.
During the war itself, both stations reported the advances and setbacks of the invaders, as well as the claims and counterclaims from the coalition and the Iraqis. Footage was not always self-generated, as they did not have embedded journalists or large teams, but both e.TV and the SABC gave consistent and extensive coverage to the anti-war demonstrations around the world. e.TV particularly excelled in one bulletin where it used a technique showing anti-war protestors in a specific country, then cutting to a world map, then to another country and back to the map. The final version of the map demonstrated that the anti-war protests were global. (News selection and packaging with the aid of technology can be a particularly effective way of driving an ideological position. As many reports and commentators have noted, the Pentagon got a Hollywood set designer to design their news briefing room to make it more media and TV friendly).
Indeed, neither e.TV nor SABC were off the mark in their representation of the protests, as the war was clearly unpopular across most of the world there was even strong resistance in the USA, where the protests spilled into the Oscar ceremony. So as the war dragged on, demonstrators in South Africa, the rest of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Asia and Europe were presented. Most airtime was of course given to South African demonstrations, including one outside parliament that counted several cabinet ministers in its ranks.
As importantly, e.TV and the SABC consistently brought home the realities of collateral damage the cynical euphemism for civilian deaths at the hands of the military. There was footage of injured babies with tubes stuck in their bodies, footage of blood-soaked bodies being carried away by distraught relatives, and footage of funerals. The moral was clear: war is bad because innocent civilians are killed and maimed.
Despite the above, there remains one major criticism. We saw precious few local commentators and analysts on e.TV and SABC, and even less special debate programmes. It seems that radio, the Internet and print media have outdone TV in this respect.
Dr. Tawana Kupe is head of media studies at Wits University’s School of Literature and Language Studies.