SABC draft Editorial Policy: a step in the right direction, but soiled by political influence
1 August 2018
The Democratic Alliance(DA) was concerned last evening when the SABC as a public broadcaster allowed Cyril Ramaphosa to address the nation in his capacity as the President of the African National Congress regarding resolutions the party had taken on land at its recent lekgotla. The DA will, therefore, write to the SABC requesting a right of reply for our Party Leader, Mmusi Maimane, to state our position on land and the unemployment crisis. If the SABC fails to grant this, it will be the clearest indicator yet that the entity is officially an ANC mouthpiece and not a public broadcaster.
Furthermore, the DA has reviewed the SABC’s draft editorial policies released for public comment in July 2018. While the policies contain some proposals that would steer the SABC in the right direction, it still contains others that would compromise the independence of the public broadcaster.
At first instance, we are pleased with the SABC for assuring the public of its commitment to its independence by making it clear that it is committed to not allowing political, commercial and personal considerations to influence editorial decisions and that the public broadcaster will not be the mouthpiece of the government of the day and will remain free from any obligation to any interest group.
At the same time, however, the SABC insists on keeping its GCEO as the editor-in-chief to whom “news items that are controversial, or likely to have an extraordinary impact” should be reported in advance. This adds an additional layer of upward referral and creates management control of news on a day-to-day basis.