When Tony Blair became leader of the British Labour Party he set out to befriend media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch owns The Sun, the biggest tabloid newspaper in Britain, as well as Sky News. In previous elections The Sun had supported the Conservatives and Blair understood that he needed the support of The Sun (topless page [...]
Posts under ‘SABC’
Return of the Groot Krokodil?
A few months ago Die Burger and Beeld carried a remarkable series of articles written by Riaan “Koedoe” Eksteen, who used to be the director general of the SABC back in the apartheid days when PW Botha was the State President of South Africa. With an astonishing lack of insight or remorse, Eksteen wrote about [...]
Dissolve the people and elect another?
In a country like South Africa where one political party has so long dominated electoral politics (first it was the National Party for over forty years and now the ANC for fifteen) it is perhaps understandable that ordinary people will begin to conflate the party and the state.
Unfortunately it is also dangerous and undermines the [...]
Zuma and the ANC: does it have a middle class problem?
Although I am not making any predictions, I am not so sure the new Congress of the People (Cope) will be as successful at the polls next year as some of its leaders are suggesting. To start a new party is hard work. One needs to build a presence on the ground by establishing local [...]
The SABC and the Zuma interview
The SABC has a legal mandate to act as a public broadcaster to inform and educate South Africans. In terms of the Broadcasting Act, the public broadcaster “must provide significant news and public affairs programming which meets the highest standards of journalism, as well as fair and unbiased coverage, impartiality, balance and independence from government, [...]
Thabo Mbek to resign as President
I am reliably told that the ANC will announce in the next hour or two that President Thabo Mbeki will resign as President of the country. If this is correct, the big question then is what happens to the Deputy President and his cabinet and who will act as President until a new President is [...]
President must refuse to sign SABC Bill
Section 79 of the Constitution states that if the President has reservations about the constitutionality of a Bill passed by Parliament, he or she must refer it back to the National Assembly for reconsideration. If the National Assembly fails to address the President’s concerns he or she can refer it to the Constitutional Court for [...]
Goodbey public broadcaster, welcome state broadcaster?
Few people in South Africa would dispute the fact that everything is not well at the SABC. Its Board and its CEO are engaged in a bitter fight while there has been a noticeable decline in the technical quality of the news programmes put out by the broadcaster. (Although, ironically, news programmes seem to be [...]
SABC and the ANC – dangerous moves
News reports suggest that the ANC in Parliament wants to amend the Broadcasting Act to give Parliament the power to hire and fire the SABC Board.
This is a dangerous and astonishingly stupid idea because it would make the SABC Board directly beholden to the majority party in Parliament. If the National Assembly can fire the [...]
Prague spring at the SABC news?
Is it a question of “when the cat is away the mice will play?” Given the complete implosion now happening at the SABC, what with CEO Dali Mpofu and group executive of news and current affairs, Snuki Zikalala, both suspended and the SABC board facing a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly it [...]
