SABC news credibility now at rock bottom

And thank goodness for all that because something else the SABC has not come close to realising in its 70 years is that the whole idea of a public broadcaster is to serve the needs of the public and not turn itself into a mouthpiece for its political masters.

This latest gagging saga almost exceeds the naive stupidity of even PW Botha's attempts to turn the SABC into his personal propaganda tool.

And once again the SABC has demonstrated its complete lack of understanding of the fact that reality means nothing these days and perception everything.

Embarrassing

Which means that by deciding not to release the full text of the Sisulu Commission report the perception was created that there are a lot of things in it that would prove to be extremely embarrassing to both the SABC and Snuki Zikalala.

And all of this adds fuel to the fire of a growing trend of viewers turning their backs on SABC news broadcasts and once again looking, for example, toward Primedia radio stations as they did in the apartheid era and to e.tv bulletins. One wonders how many advertisers will want to start distancing themselves from a broadcast environment so lacking in credibility.

And the SABC should now be thoroughly taken to task for the damage it is doing to the country. South Africa has, or frankly used to have, the enviable reputation of having the highest level of press freedom on the planet. Now, however, with this latest act of utter stupidity having been featured on everything from the BCC to ABC Online in Australia and qualifying for a Google news alert that reached billions of people, our media has become a laughing stock.

Irony

And the real irony of this fiasco is that Zikalala was very probably not instructed by either the ANC or the SABC Board to turn SABC news into an ANC mouthpiece, but just went gung-ho all on his own.

It seems abundantly clear that the current SABC executive have not the foggiest idea of how to deal with a crisis. The way in which they have handled this situation is quite appalling.

Dead giveaway

For example, one does not have to have an IQ any higher than that of a brain-dead dung beetle to realise that one cannot appoint an internal commission of inquiry and then refuse to accept the bulk of its findings. Talk about a dead giveaway.

Take these two paragraph from the official SABC communication on the issue:

1.1 Firstly the Commission had limitations in that it was to a great extent based on submissions from anonymous sources who chose for their own reasons to testify behind closed doors. While we are grateful to these individuals for coming forward, this does affect the qualitative value of the report.1.2 Secondly, the Commission was not conducted in the form of a trial. Accordingly the allegations made by the 39 witnesses were largely untested. In the case of anonymous witnesses the evidence was incapable of being tested, and may well be contestable.

Not only are these two statements naive to the point of the utterly puerile but are actually insulting in the extreme to both Zwelakhe Sisulu and Gilbert Marcus. Irrespective of their political connections, it is laughable to think that these two men are incapable to separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to credible evidence.

No experience

With the reputation of the SABC having pretty well sunk to the ludicrous levels of the apartheid era, it is time that Government started thinking very seriously of appointing a broadcast expert to run the show. History has shown that experience is vital in understanding the broadcast environment and right now there seems to be little if no experience at the top.

The past few years has seen the SABC making huge inroads commercially with its sponsorship and advertising revenues soaring. My bet is that with these management fiascos combined with the national broadcaster stupidly falling over itself to please its political stakeholders by wanting to go so completely overboard on public service content, it can virtually count on its sponsorship and ad revenue falling considerably.

And the CEO and his head of news need to realise that will cause more heads to roll than blocking commentators.

Playing the political arse-creeping game is playing with fire.