The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) on Wednesday delivered a 16-page judgement to bring down the curtain on a war of words between two national media personalities, precipitated by the Darrel Bristow-Bovey plagiarism claims.
The four-member tribunal of the BCCSA handed down judgement following several weeks of deliberation, after Mail and Guardian columnist Robert Kirby lodged a complaint against Jeremy Maggs and utterances Maggs made during a September broadcast of the Media@Safm programme.
In his summary, tribunal chairman Proffesor Kobus van Rooyen, said Kirby had complained that the SABC had unjustifiably denied him the right to reply to an accusation of inaccuracy in his column by Maggs during one of his broadcasts.
Kirby also complained that the presenter, Maggs, had invaded his privacy by having referred to him as ”an ageing and bitter Western Cape columnist”.
The tribunal held that since the dispute dealt with alleged plagiarism, the matter was one of controversial public importance and the SABC was not justified in denying the columnist the opportunity to reply on air against the criticism levelled against him.
As to the question of privacy, it was held that age was a private matter and that the circumstances had not justified the reference. Age was, in any case, irrelevant to the debate and it was also taken into consideration that there was an innuendo that
the ”ageing” had contributed to the alleged inaccuracy.
The tribunal held, in favour of the SABC, that it had not been biased in dealing with the plagiarism issue as a whole, by allegedly supporting the Bristow-Bovey group.
With regards to a proposed sanction and broadcasting of an apology on air to Kirby by the SABC, the tribunal said it had retracted the order because Kirby had subsequently agreed it was not necessary.
The two media personalities had initially squared off at the BCCSA tribunal in November last year. – Sapa