SABC TV 20 YEARS - the untold story

I must confess that as a person who was not over enthusiastic about the introduction of television I'm pleasantly surprised with what I've seen so far television has brought the world to our doorsteps and into our living rooms the longer can it be said that one half of the world does not know how the other half lives this of course has its advantages it also brings with it certain responsibilities South African television sa TV has always had a history and when it will start 1976 you have to remember that there had been some ten years of discussion in parliament about the advisability or not of into introducing a television service South Africa was the last fairly industrialized country ever to get television there was a very good reason for that was this great fear of television that it would introduce liberal ideas introduce communism would introduce ideas of racial equality whatever you wanted to call that into South Africa because even now already we can see how easy it is to create and instill wrong impressions about peoples and countries by slanted news and pictures and unbalanced presentation effects South Africa unfortunately has long been the victim of such presentation and I remember that evening very well when Young's gotta phone because I was in leave and he said you are the manager of English television I couldn't believe I went for a long walk around Zoo Lake just just to internalize this amazing challenge terror and the opportunity of creating a new industry I knew what the potential of the whole thing was where is anything other South Africans if you think back to those days they'd sort of seen television sets in cartoon strips and they'd heard Boca Herzl to talking work with with anger about this castle hook um but I knew what was about and I was very excited to be part of it it was this huge new endeavor and everybody was excited about television at that stage I was assistant to dr. Yantz katha was the first director of television and I attended all their planning sessions so it made a challenge when he mentioned to me the possibility of maybe coming ella vision director i think to be in television in the 1970s that was the time to be in television it was the beginning and I remember in the early days of 1974-75 management suddenly you woke up at a management meeting and said good gracious the heads of our departments have never seen television and we were all bundled off overseas to study television and we went to the gore hotel in London we were told to spend 10 hours in our bedrooms a color television set was delivered and we had to examine and analyze British television for a week we then went on to Germany and we then went on to France doing the same sort thing making copious notes and having conferences and breakfasts workshops and so forth and examining television then coming back to South Africa at the end of 75 and so forth and implementing some of these ideas yeah we had to make it happen we had to get pictures on the air come the fifth of January 1976 and we were given certain briefs in terms of what have to had to happen but the people above us knew nothing of the technicalities they didn't know what was required to make it happen people at my level and below knew and were learning what in fact was required to get these pictures on the air so yeah we we we worked and we just made it happen because as soon as that was the most fantastic time everybody was very young filled with a kind of a passion for filmmaking just such a sense of gratitude and wonder at being in this medium of television and making movies it didn't matter what you were being paid it didn't matter to work through the night it was just this incredible euphoria and I think that that's what got television off the ground youthful enthusiasm youthful passion for film and television I joined in June 75 somewhat to my surprise I had a letter from the Director General and giving me a salary increase which I thought wasn't bad for the first day at work and and I remember the wording it said in record of your your your hard work and enthusiasm we hereby present you with an increase South Africa's hard work and enthusiasm did not go unnoticed by the outside world in particular Philpott's file produced by the BBC on location for his documentary South Africa faces television in 1975 British filmmaker Trevor Philpott captured some of the irony and lighter moments of the build-up to the big switch on of 1976 Verna bells head of the Afrikaner magazine programmes is a gentlelady not likely to put anybody on a spit for public roasting we touch on a flaw say sometimes on a more controversial subjects but not not in a in a big way you know we had quite interesting about battery water a little while ago somebody said they were putting in just ordinary water into bed yet instead of distill water that's right and we had quite an interesting thing about that para port for the Afrikaans head of variety does he have to be careful about showing revolving bottoms even if they are fur trim well to certain extent years I think the Afrikaans speaking man the people in this country are myself I include myself there obviously and as far as dancers dance routines and things are concerned we will use them eventually I think but but as you say with a certain deserve you know we will we will now how can I put it we'll put them we'll have them do this properly I suppose it was a very dull programme you admitted you didn't use any close-ups and we my goodness you didn't I'm still learning I know these are the people involved with 1976 damn damn day lighting cameraman Johanna Cathy production and never is one of our makeup artists say categorically that they were certainly no black trainee cadets in our course not at all he worked very long hours because everyone was very sort of keen you know this was a new thing and we all enjoyed it very much but once our training had finished and we'd you know we were then sort of set off in these departments to start sections of the SABC because not much was happening at that stage I personally got frustrated and and was I'm not there was a real buzz and an excitement about finally getting to grips with this magic medium and as early days are always very difficult to recapture that same kind of enthusiasm and and passion and I you know I think the many crimes you could charge the SABC for is they killed a lot of that passion they turned a magic medium into polish and atmosphere having been attempt to towards the end of all this we've all expected to make a 50-minute piece on and I made a short documentary called June you had a Sharif you went by the the story of a little girl from Amsterdam and a rat see us and how she was picked up by an old man and found a way to Auschwitz and how she survived Auschwitz after the film was shown there was this quietness the Cylons are hanging over this whole thing I died too later one of the other producers came to me and he stopped me the passage listen to me Donnie doubled for our frog will you africanus cop and a day later I was called in by the manager of the a CBC of a current station at the time and I was asked why in English and why about the Jews which was really killer to me why not an agent what about the Jews I was that naive and when I gave him an answer it seemed to have pleased the specific person enough to say to me that was on its second mark that in african-led one dunk that was my first face-to-face experience with what's to come in a sec and I think this following on to what dr. young scooter said to us during our television course that a black man will never appear on my television I will never forget that we also had the feeling from African side that the English department was sort of a token department they were they had to be there so that they were tolerated the Africans des partners what the SABC was all about and let me say without hesitation we are determined in this country to uphold those high standards of Christian civilization and we are we expect of the sabc and the SI TV to assist in doing precisely air and one of the chief reasons why we are indeed so proud of our SABC error is a TV and I ahead may I give you a very great man dr. PJ mayor the chairman of the SABC from a political point of view from a control point of view we were what the SME see was all about s ABC was there it wasn't black it wasn't english it was Afrikaans and if you think of the line control that goes up first to the blue the bolt and then to the government when pit Meyer the final report on the viability of television South Africa came out it was first given to the bloody bomb before it was presented to the government as a VC was controlled by the root of all battle got that's no secret and they were about 49 to 50 over but we know we don't know about the others if you dare to be an individual you are a threat to these people to these super Africans who live and work in a sort of dark nebulous neither world of their own and they have their proxies and these people control your thoughts your ideas and through that without controlling you you as a producer and the writers and these are the people the television of the actual people on the ground in the field they control the people's minds at home it's it it's a form of thought police I was kept aligned by process of us moses i knew instinctively because i spent every day every morning we had a meeting following the previous evenings transmission with the director of programmes and we would go through everything that had happened on the air because I represented the english-speaking community I was the only english-speaking person in the hierarchy of the SABC at that time and I think they think you're a TDD unless I do not let them get on with it within certain parameters I understood what was happening but I also because I was part of Management and close to the people that were implementing policy I knew what the constraints were and I think that in that way I earned a certain amount of trust from the people above me I think they knew that I wasn't deliberately going to really sort of bring down the school of the entire for condemnation or the Nationals party couple of whatever on our heads that certainly wouldn't have been to my personal advantage we were working under extremely difficult conditions because remember it was apartheid government National Party was in power sabc was actually administered by brutal and thinking and yet there were very definite programs we felt we had to make for South African television to educate to inform and to entertain and we certainly did we made a wonderful program or on a wide variety of subjects I did not see my role there as a sort of news documentary embarrassed the government embarrassed the sabc type of department at all now we had a much wider canvas turpitude paint our programs on so obviously I had certain producers within my department who saw differently they saw themselves as as at perhaps being in the vanguard of change all our programs were subject to editorial censorship and many items had to be cut out of programs under great duress and resistance from most of us working in documentaries in South Africa at that time the scope was absolutely huge and in that sense it was very exciting because there were some of us in the English documentaries Department who were really concerned to try and make programs that were relevant to the time they never came to us and said look we're in nationalist party government mouthpiece therefore you can do this in you can't do that this is this is the line that you don't cross they never said that it was far more insidious than that they came to us and and and they're you know they would say no no you know you can you can tackle any subject you like as long as you present both sides of the story now that was the in the both sides of the story it introduced the gray area I can recall very clearly editing a production in which there was a clash between demonstrating wits students and police and a policeman at one point reached over quite blatantly grabbed a woman by her breast and looked at her as if to say and what are you going to do about it now it happened very quickly but anywhere else one would have frozen frame on that because it was it was a very dramatic moment and said something very clearly and we had a look at it and wondered whether we would get away with it because it happened very quickly and maybe they wouldn't notice that you know when they went to the viewing but then we thought on balance they probably would and if they did then they start looking for other things and then we'd lose another piece and another piece so in the end we decided look you know let's let's rather cut it and it's just a small thing you see but you go from there to cutting the next one or the next one and the worst thing is when you start doing it yourself so that the sensor won't do it for you once you're in that kind of Pavlovian mice situation then they have achieved achieved their objective I think so ultimately what you'd end up with is a program that in a sense was a total whitewash of the issue that you set out to make at that point they'd say well you know if you're not happy we can take your name of the program or even better still put it on the shelf and you know we'll worry about it later and there are many films that ended up in that way put on the shelf and never saw the light of day after the sweater riots in 76 the SABC in its wisdom transmitted I think in October that year a National Film Board production about black education I can't remember the title but effectively it was a cress piece of propaganda and it made a case for black education being absolutely tip-top and first-class and and and basically spelled out all the the wonderful aspects of black education without mentioning any of the the possible setbacks I I made a case strongly that we should try and rectify that blatant imbalance I felt that it was an insult frankly to our viewers that they should have to tolerate the transmission of that kind program and I merely suggested doing a documentary which turned out to be two half-hour documentaries on the state of black education at the time this was a hot potato and when that program was completed by Adrienne hearing was now overseas it was had to be screamed to the management most of my document if not all my documentary programs had to be screened to upper management for approval and this one came forward for approval well I think the Oakland Park high-rise building began to tremble and ultimately what happened with the film's was that they were simply buried and I think it was rather hoped that they would disappear silently and the sabc management banned the program outright the sale was biased and must never be screened and I'd be relegated to the archives probably destroyed obviously you felt that your integrity as a producer director was I was under grave threat and as I say there was one occasion where I did go back and expand expand a half-hour documentary to a one-hour and I did put in material that I had not intended to be there in the first place when the next such occasion came along with black education I simply refused to do anything about it now I guess it's always a mystery to me that I wasn't thrown out then and there but I wasn't and I've always thought that the hierarchy was probably more concerned that the whole thing should just be kept quiet which was the picture of white South Africa anyway it was that hiding from reality blissfully unaware of just what else was going on in the country if ignorance be bliss in 1976 South Africa invaded Angola and four months s ADF and government officials assured the South African public that s ADF troops had nots foot on angle and soil no longer able to refute the barrage of evidence presented by the international media their task completed the Nationalist Party government attempted to justify their actions in this they employed their fledgling servant and the cream of Afrikaans drama and documentary television personnel were chosen to produce the docudrama bravia team but a fear teen happened all around us but certain producers were taken out certain cameraman taken out against the background of the fact that nobody was allowed to know what we were doing in and down time it was a major propaganda if it for period borders government at the time for defense forearm school and for the parents at home who had children and were they thinking that it is all for fatherland which of course it wasn't you're also hot as a clink rupini free under a sauce for often by Ian Oh meet eluphant the price we are on it a dunk that is her laying herbivory we are also local money from home at those deal borrows but fair funnels office the 13 was set up as a fiction but it masqueraded as being the real thing and I think that naive viewers could have seen it as having been shot on the battlefield dangers I thought it sa TV was not only the way in which the news was either suppressing or or highlighting certain things but her so-called entertainment programs how dramas or docudramas like graffiti were pressed him to the surface of the turtle onslaught the Oblivion of course immediately utilized all of the epic Hollywood conventions in order to show the brave South African soldiers fighting against the demonic Cuban forces demonic forces of darkness black nationalism live you want to call it an alpha annihilate did I dirty scheme and when the film finally went hot I couldn't believe what he was looking at it was just mediocre blatant Russian type propaganda piece we were under the total onslaught and there were times when the military would take us his a department to Pattaya and explain to us what they what the communist threat was to Southern Africa and the importance of us producing programs which would prepare the country for this turtle onslaught there was a sense that the SABC was now going to be used to justify an endorse whatever the military was doing and I'll never forget as English documentary producers the organiser of English documentaries would take us into the main preview theater and we'd look at overseas documentaries and have a discussion about the merits of the film which was a good learning process this particular occasion we went into the main preview theater up in main site as it was then and done showed us a film by the American filmmaker Frank Capra it was a series called why we fight that justified the American entry into the Second World War so when we've seen the film and we were chatting done then it was kind of insidious he started to turn the conversation around the point that as documentary producers in South Africa in a particular situation that South Africa found itself in we could be expected as good Patriots to make films that endorsed what the military was doing I mean it was absolutely incredible you know you should even attempt to do this and I flatly refused and in fact all the producers flatly refused to be involved in this and it was given to an outside company to do well I think the reaction was fairly negative I personally felt at the time that it was important in that particular stage in our history to deal with that subject to deal with their problem certainly there was a Russian threat to southern Africa that was unmistakable we had to do something about that and we shouldn't shirk from it I hope that I could throw out the seeds and my producers say yes I'll pick up an angle and good it clearly was becoming very difficult to retain your integrity as a documentary producer and still make programs in that climate and in that environment and I think as with many others in the English documentaries Department one just eventually realized that one was beating one's head against a brick wall and there was no point in hanging about in contrast to death and suffering life and fulfillment with the miracle of birth here mrs. Aryan section delivery and epidural anesthetic think the bearer instant is a good example of the way in which this censorship strategy worked I was to make when our special on barrack Weymouth hospital for me it was very exciting because as a filmmaker what I would do was I would use the hospital to mirror the social environmental conditions of the community that it served management I ever got excited because they saw this as a wonderful opportunity to show what this wonderful Hospital in other words what White's we're doing for the people of Soweto so I went off I shot the film and because it was a management priority there was a rush to get it out to have it screened management viewed the film and there was a lot of debate within management as to whether the film should go out or not but that aside the sabc management past that film with art cuts in its entirety the day before the film was to be screened I had a courtesy viewing for the hospital staff that had been involved that helped me and after the views of the film was shown to them I mean it was wonderful there was a wonderful response that really enjoyed the film but there was one man he was sitting there shaking his head and they had a totally different response and that was dr. B okis it was the superintendent of the hospital and he said to me there is absolutely no way that this film can go out not because of what I learn about the hospital but because I had showed Soweto so here was a documentary a part of which showed you I mean of a glimpse of how other people in a Township lived and dr. Baracus was extremely unhappy as he said you know it's a major program but a major hospital probably be sold overseas and I mean you can't have this image being shown to people overseas anyway I said to him I'm sorry but in fact this film has been approved for viewing by the management of s ABC we've got that far and so it's going out I then went to Don Briscoe my organized and I said look because has had this reaction and he said well don't worry management have approved the phone there's absolutely nothing you can do about it and then he came back and he said my god it seems that because has had some effect he's just had an instruction from management that I had to cut out the opening sequence and you know I was astounded my position was quite clear I'd been there for five years I'd seen the game that sabc management was playing with us and I just felt that if I compromised on the small issue then I mean I wouldn't have a leg to stand on in terms of other films and I wanted to make that worry about serious issues and then it came to me like a flash I mean in fact the only thing that I could do was in fact tell management yes I care I would cut dark the opening sequence and then not cut it out and that's exactly what I did Soweto proposed dormitory city for temporary so Jonas from the homeland today the sprawling home of more than 1 million urban blacks located in the shadow of Johannesburg's consciousness in 2 3 & 4 room houses poverty overcrowding and unemployment give rise to malnutrition and rheumatic conditions in serious proportions among children from this vast agglomeration of roughly one hundred and one thousand houses with the dawn the East would flow to central Johannesburg main focus of so Etta's work trips begins on overcrowded trains as in the township itself the consequences of sociological and environmental deficiencies manifest themselves in crime and violence with at least one member every 4th sir Witten family becoming the victim of violent crime I must say that's sitting watching it with friends there was a moment where I thought maybe they would have viewed the film and it seemed that I hadn't cut it off and then sensitive but when I saw the first frame guard as it was broadcast I just had this incredible feeling of relief that they hadn't cut it and I mean such a small issue but yeah my film was getting out in its entirety and I have absolutely no regrets about I was fired within 24 hours it wasn't as if I said art to provoke a high-profile incident it's something that just happened I think there was an inevitable thing in terms of the game that management was playing with us that you know I had seen 6 7 8 producers leave resigned through frustration and I suppose in a sense that was inevitable that for me too it would come to this the producer assured us that it would be cut and that was the problem and I think the action that followed was in response to what we perceived as and this is going to sound a bit dramatic but a producer hijacking the network at a time of great tension in a documentary department and I was obliged to to fire the producer for not obeying instructions and he said something like this is the worst thing I think I've ever been I've ever had to do in my life I've just received a memo from personnel department saying you're fired that's a pretty serious situation firing somebody that that's heavy and certainly I I didn't have the authority to do that entirely by myself if I'd have to have been sanctioned I must tell you that I initiated I initiated it but yeah if I didn't will they wield the ax I certainly pushed the button yeah but I mean the issue was in fact that it wasn't just a say BC censorship because sabc management passed that film for broadcast uncut it was outside interference by somebody who as I remember had links with the Britta bond that his displeasure was communicated up the line it came across and back down into the SABC so it was outside interference as well that was actually manipulating controlling SABC television while all that was going on there are a lot of very positive things that were happening if you remember bill for was doing amazing work he was doing musical spectacular like Salome and there were so many other things that were happening in the context of documentaries which were very positive in terms of of the corporation and their contribution to the English part of the television service for which reason I was very sad that documentaries eventually disappeared I always knew that the National Party controlled es ABC she won't know man if you want to call it controlled call it whichever word you you want to factorize that the s ABC was not independent it supported the government of the day the Minister touched on several other subjects he made an urgent appeal in the private sector to become more involved in fighting the International Campaign against South Africa the private sector had access as an introducer it happened very often you're live on in the municipality you protect that story off which caused a lot of havoc in the flow of things women we often went black we often had that breaks on a and there weren't technical practices because simply a story was taken out which had is better foam attached to it and you can't simply just jump that piece of foam because in those days we before we were running a real foam and UV I have a piece of foam that is in between you've gotta go to black for that so you had a technical fault or something happen at that time but that's what many Minister for called Innes I don't want that story in you and that's simply took the story up good evening the United States says it considers the African National Congress to be an African nationalist organization which is seeking to replace the present government of South Africa through violence as well as other means the conventional response that sa TV learned very quickly was that any momentous event to any movement was always shown to be simply some or other sort of inchoate violent happening at Cradock in the Eastern Cape tens of thousands of people gathered today for the funeral are for community leaders who died last month in mysterious circumstance or tough-minded extra-parliamentary organizations like a dasa like Casati like the National Union of Mineworkers were always shown to be violent voiceless leaderless with no point of view other than the destruction of white civilization as we know it and the police and the army were validated as being the law as being always being controlled think that the control that is military and police exercised over SA TV very obvious towards the the middle and end of the 80s so here for selection omission and inject the position of images yes we had contact with the security forces we had we had we had people that we had been inspected quite regularly in the Security Forces number one to get news some of our best news we got from the security forces bonafide in use number two we built up relationships with some of these people because we were the we were the the visual medium I mean we knew we knew we were what we could do and what we could not do and this does not mean that we were ideologically programmed to sort of be an extension of the government in power that's not what we're saying we had to manage the situation as best as we could and for what it's worth to you under those very difficult to circumstances we were in a catch-22 situation we applied as far as we could journalistic ethics and principles enough some people will burst out laughing when I say this but it's a fact we had a terrible time we were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea do you know as well as I do especially in news that what you use and the way you use it carries a certain message remember the the footage of the desert woman rooms she was necklace there cetera et cetera I specifically found somebody to find out if we should use this would there be any security implications and he said no so if you can find a reason to use it use your journalistic ethics your journalistic norms use it which we did good evening in tonight's program we'll be looking at the issue of black on black violence and related matters but first let's take a look at this brief report which includes some disturbing scenes July 1985 the doozer in the Toronto this monkey is Kasana a victim of black violence I want to say this it's got nothing to do with government policies it's got nothing to do with our birth date or anything like that it's got to do with a commitment of the ANC communist manipulated as it is they want to gain control of the country through three of the people of this power of this country the black people in particular through intimidation and then after that remember the either the funeral funeral of remember and then you had these big communist banners etc etc but according to the laws of the land we could not use it and I found when I said look we are transgressing the act we want to use it and the answer was use it it happened many a time and I know everybody will now deny and say look Pretorius is a liar but I know of many occasions where we as journalists of the sabc and journalists per se agreed wholeheartedly and vice versa with a viewpoint and viewpoints of the security forces and especially the the senior people who knew what it was all about we were at idiom about many things and and and and we knew that the politicians would never hold that same viewpoint the demonization of Desmond Tutu by the then government at that stage was done for a specific reason remember sanctions UDF etc etc now surely the state broadcaster will have to take sides with the government of the day in a situation such as this as journalists of the state broadcaster in those days we did not have a problem with that sure it was a mistake to demonize Desmond Tutu with the hindsight we have today but with the information at our disposal at that stage we took a decision it was either black it was either white not in the sense of colour but it was either left or right or whatever you want to call it and we took the decision with no problem I had no problem now if the demonization of Bishop tutu happened in that process today I say it was wrong and I regret it but one was see this in perspective of the wider picture there was an element of corruption involved in this I can't believe that other producers and the outside some of them have got so much work didn't play along we weren't given the rules and said as long as you do this and do the do this this is what's going to happen business ran on those principles it was corruption it was nothing but corruption I don't think apartheid as I said earlier I think it could have worked as successfully for as long as it did or won the acceptance that it did without the active participation of the SABC I don't underestimate for a moment the part they played in in bending Minds you know see a lot of people don't read newspapers and of course then you know how good the newspapers are is also a matter for debate but those people who rely on radio and television for their news and for their views would have been very much influenced by the SADC and that's why although there were many people there that I liked on it on an individual basis a super people you know we could talk about them at great length nice guys but at the end of the day if you look at what they did in the way of bending minds ruining careers frightening people and making them insecure telling lives I think they were really pretty awful people I had much more flat from the media than I had from my bosses I mean the press gave me hell I think they saw me as a renegade they saw me as a as a traitor I'm so bloody English with my double-barreled hair and all the rest of it and Anglo Saxon looks and in spite of being a born South Africa I think the English press never really forgave me for what they perceived as my siding with your O'Connor establishment all I wanted was television I love television I wanted to be involved in television that was my that was my reason I say it's good that there has been changed people like me should not be there anymore we represent our symbols of an age gone past and of a certain era that should best be forgotten there's no way somebody in my position can stay on in the new position so now I'm gonna serve a new master especially in a public broadcaster so I don't think that is possible change fine no problem I had to go and other people in certain other positions had to change initially I requested a package and then mr. Sulu asked me to rethink which I did and I went back to him and I think we played open cards he was aware of the fact that I was with SABC for years that I was in fact part of the old SABC establishment I was part of the actuality and news department I was with television and radio at that stage so I think they knew perfectly well what they had in liova nama and I went back to him and I said to him if the SABC desire so I would like to make my contribution to building a new corporation USA BC he then requested from me which I think is perfectly legitimate he requested my commitment not only to this ABC but also to him as chief executive of this ABC and I say to him I had no problem whatsoever I would like to commit myself both to ease leadership and to that of the newest ABC one of the things I I thought I would do when I got into the essay BC was to transform the SABC in a couple of months well that is impossible I mean we've been bogged down in the hearings of of the IBA the regulator body we've gone through retrenchments so one has been dealing with these huge administrative issues quite friendly which one had to do you see before you you created a new sabc you have to undo some of the things of the past you know for a start there are a lot of people with the necessary expertise in terms of television production who have elected to stay on in the US ABC and help in its transformation therefore it's not as if we're starting from scratch you know there is the expertise that we need for our day-to-day programming but yes a lot of people who have come into the SABC at a very senior level are people who have come without any broadcast experience we are moving aggressively in putting sample the new people who haven't had experience through very intense training problems at the same time we're building capacity within the organization you know through programs of training trainers because we do understand that the transformation of the SABC certainly at the technical level is going to be a process rather than an event but yes we have come in it's taken 18 months at least for many of us to understand the nature of the beast now the second phase of our strategy is to actually get into the program content changes that will reflect the values of the of the new South Africa have you ever been asked by the government or any representative of the government to make a particular program or to withdraw a particular program no never no neither on radio and so far not on television do you see the possibility of how we dance I don't think we operate that way and I don't think it's the government's believe I believe either now is that because your policy and the government's policy coincide exactly or is it because they genuinely don't wish to interfere I think they generally don't want to interfere but also I think we ourselves we have a certain policy amongst ourselves ourselves and I think if we work within that framework we can get away with quite a lot those of us who have come into the sabc I believe have a history of striving the principles for instance such as editorial independence and the autonomy of the public broadcaster so we have a deep commitment to to those principles however our personal commitment is not enough and so we have put in place charters within the sabc that will govern the independence of the editorial side of the cooperation we have for instance a document a code of ethics for our new stuff that makes it very clear that editorial decisions lie with editorial people we are also making representations to the Constituent Assembly where we want to put into the constitution as a very fundamental principle of the Constitution the need for the public broadcaster to be protected by the Constitution I do believe that if you put in place processes that are open to public scrutiny but half the problem is solved if s ABC management has to be fleet-footed if it has to be effective it if it has to be efficient it is our interest as well that we call manage this place with the public because corruption also bogs down the organization it leads to mediocre performances because people are given work on the basis of who they are rather than what they produce I asked the director-general what their attitude to the deep social issues in the country was going to be would they allow a crusading drama or documentary producer a permanent place in their service yes I think so well why not you know where we have people here belonging to all parties and meet in the news department and in a program department no surely I think it makes for good broadcasting if we have people with different points of view you see I myself had an experience of working in environment that produce excellence when I worked as a young reporter on the run Daily Mail and what what made the run Daily Mail to be what it was was precisely the independence the labor to the culture where people were allowed to think differently to go onto the threshold to be challenging to be bold that is what I want for the SABC I am going to strive and do everything in my power to ensure that the SABC is an excellent organization and you can't achieve excellence without that independence you can't achieve excellence without allowing people to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes that is the energy that is the energy that I'd like to see within the sabc it is very important to get big independent people to tell the story lost you know because in the past we've had our stories being told by white people enter this has not really been very successful we should try not to emulate too much you know and what we see on TV especially the influence that is so apparent you know from American films even sitcoms Thursdays and everything that we want to do we want it to be a copycat of what we've seen in the past so I think we really have to to be to be a proud enough and and and and probably risky enough to to indulge in new things and see what impact that are going to have on the audience's focusable na manja Lata ho I think what we've got to worry about is professionalism we've got to rely on a new breed of producers because those producers will find new audiences one of the legacies that we have is that there's only one audience the audience is a middle-class audience used to be middle-class white audience now I think it's a middle-class white and black audience there are many many audiences in South Africa and only a clever committed producer can actually seek out those audiences and then make the programs that fit the interests of those audiences I think that's where diversity comes and is a BG must be driven by producers producers with passion producers with insight users with commitment trained producers one of the things that I I believe I am achieving see is in a space of a year's chief executive I have changed the age profile of their CPC now I say that because I think investing in youth is so vital for the future of of the sabc because youth is not cautious you know youth does not leave for next month's salary you know so I have invested in the youth because I believe that they have the energy the passion for creativity that I want for this organization you

Channel: Kevin Harris

Views: 168,570

Keywords: SABC TV, Apatheid, South Africa, documentary, Kevin Harris, censorsip, television, 1976, Don Broscoe, Robin Knox-Grant, John van Zyl

Id: DzyJgI-qA-s

Length: 51min 27sec (3087 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2015