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Hot on the heels of a standoff over board selection, Fikile Mbalula confronts editors about a ‘blackout’ of party’s activities
In an apparent bid to control its election coverage, the ANC has been tightening the screws on the public broadcaster.
Matters came to a head late on Friday afternoon in a heated meeting at the SABC demanded by the ANC’s head of elections, Fikile Mbalula.
At the meeting, which began at about 5pm, Mbalula initially challenged the SABC’s most senior news editors, including group executive of news Phathiswa Magopeni, accusing the broadcaster’s newsroom of a “clampdown” against the ANC’s election activities, which he also referred to as a “blackout”, sources told City Press on Saturday.
“He said: ‘SABC news is dealing with the ANC’, as if we are trying to punish them by not giving coverage. But, in fact, the opposite could be seen to be true,” said an impeccably placed source.
After he complained of too little coverage in the North West, the editors explained to Mbalula that the ANC had so many events in the lead-up to its manifesto launch that they had to actively look for other parties’ events to cover so as not to be accused of giving the governing party too much coverage.
Following Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams’ attempt to block an SABC news crew from filming service delivery protests at the ANC’s Eastern Cape election manifesto launch, Mbalula flatly denied allegations that he was threatening towards the SABC journalists, or that he raised his voice at the meeting.
He said on Saturday that he was unhappy that sources “have gone running to City Press” about a private and preliminary meeting.
“I did not take any complaints into the meeting. I wanted to understand their approach to their coverage of political parties. We discussed things nicely; it was cordial,” he said.
“I told them that the ANC deserves fair coverage and asked how they would cover the biggest party, because the ANC is huge and campaigns everywhere.”
Mbalula said he had expected a one-on-one meeting with Magopeni and that when he told the meeting of all the top editors that he had been “ambushed”, he said so “in jest”.
Sources say the meeting later calmed down.
The SABC’s head of communications, Neo Momodu, confirmed the meeting had taken place and said: “The SABC will continue to meet with stakeholders, including political parties, should they express an interest to meet with us. SABC News remains resolute in its quest to providing unrestrained news content to our audiences.”
THREATS TO DISSOLVE BOARD
Mbalula’s meeting with the editors follows tensions over Parliament’s selection of eight new members of the SABC board ahead of the May general election.
After being accused by civil society and the DA’s Phumzile van Damme of dragging its feet in short-listing candidates to make the board of four remaining members quorate again, the short-listing was scheduled for Tuesday, but did not take place.
A suggestion from the EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi that the portfolio committee on communications conduct exit interviews with the eight members who resigned was adopted by committee chair Hlengiwe Mkhize.
These were announced to take place on March 5 at the committee’s next meeting.
Ndlozi told City Press that the move did not have to delay board selections and that the committee needed to get to the bottom of “the biggest problem facing the SABC, which is political interference from the ANC”, to stop repeating mistakes that see the broadcaster fail.
Van Damme has repeatedly speculated that the ANC orchestrated the collapse of what was perceived as the first truly independent board in years by withdrawing the members it had nominated, and frustrating others by refusing to offer the broadcaster a bailout or bank guarantee.
“They have wanted an interim board all along,” she said.
In an interview on SABC news on Tuesday night, a stern Mkhize made it clear several times that one of the options was to dissolve the SABC board and elect an interim one.
Opposition parties dismissed the notion earlier in the day by demanding to know on what legal grounds the four remaining members would face an inquiry so they could be axed according to the terms of the Broadcasting Act.
The ANC members of the committee failed to provide any.
By Wednesday morning, civil society groups the SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) were poised to file an urgent “appeal” at the Constitutional Court to force the committee to short-list 24 candidates for the eight vacant seats.
But by then, the committee had decided to meet and the candidates were named by lunch time.
Their interviews begin on Tuesday, with the committee projecting it will be able to present the names of new board members before the end of the month.
Mkhize told City Press that the committee “never took a decision in a properly constituted meeting to dissolve the remaining four non-executive board members”.
“Not even the ANC caucus in Parliament ever took such a decision,” she said, adding: “The committee was more concerned about bringing stability into the governance challenges at board level and therefore looked at various possibilities to achieve that.”
BAILOUT BLUES
Impeccably placed sources inside the SABC repeatedly told City Press of the pressure they and the SABC’s top management have endured in the face of threats to dissolve the board.
“It is a matter of principle for them all,” said a highly placed SABC insider. “They believe in independent media, especially heading into national elections.”
The sources believe that the state has purposefully dragged its feet in rescuing the broadcaster.
A R5 billion rescue package is said to be on the table, but Ndabeni-Abrahams has publicly lashed the board, especially regarding its plans to retrench staff, now on ice.
Sources have, for weeks, told of how delegates from the department allegedly bullied SABC bosses.
Ndabeni-Abrahams’ spokesperson, Nthabeleng Mokitimi-Dlamini, denied this, saying: “A task team comprising senior officials from the communications department, National Treasury and the SABC are working together on the recapitalisation of the public broadcaster.
The team has recommended a bailout, but this submission is going through the requisite processes for consideration.”
She dismissed all claims of bullying as “unfounded”.
Asked if there was any truth in Mbalula’s fears that the ANC was not receiving equitable coverage from the SABC, MMA’s William Bird said: “While it is still early on in our elections monitoring, coverage of the ANC across SABC online news and headline broadcast news services is in line with expected trends of party coverage. The ANC receives the lion’s share of coverage, followed by the DA and the EFF. In our previous research in 2016, we found evidence of bias that favoured the ANC and disfavoured other parties.”
MMA and the SOS Coalition sent a lawyer’s letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa last week, stressing that they remain ready to take legal action against the state should the board selection process stall again.
