RHODES University commemorated World Press Freedom Day on Monday 3 May by holding a panel discussion
on the New Public Services Broadcasting Bill.
The bill proposes to change the broadcasting sector and specifically the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
RHODES University commemorated World Press Freedom Day on Monday 3 May by holding a panel discussion
on the New Public Services Broadcasting Bill.
The bill proposes to change the broadcasting sector and specifically the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
It has been criticised for attempting to allow the Minister of Communications to control the broadcasting sector.
The panellists debated the main controversies of the bill as follows. World Press Freedom Day South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) member, Raymond Louw said, “World Press Freedom Day is an important day in the media calendar.”
He explained that this day marks the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration of Free Press 19 years ago and commemorates the adoption of the right to freedom of expression in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Louw said that the bill is contravenes the principles of World Press Freedom Day. He referred to a history of people who want to protect their own reputations and therefore censor the media.
He said that the bill is an encroachment on the media and its expression and it is important to weigh up the Windhoek Declaration against the bill.
Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society Prof Jane Duncan said that press freedom has come a long way but, “we should not be complacent about the fate of press freedom and we should be concerned about it”.
Louw said that safeguarding national interest is included in the bill but when national interest is equated with public interest it becomes a controlling mechanism.
He questioned how this will affect the general voice of the SABC. He said according to how the bill is phrased it is evident that the content will require the Minister’s approval which is very worrying and “totally unacceptable in a democratic state.”
The public should be consulted SABC Eastern Cape regional manager, Zola Yeye said that the bill was not “crafted in a dark corner where the community was not involved.”
He said the South African community did participate in the drawing up of the bill through online
services as he said, “We live in an information highway.
The Bill did go around.” Hendricks commented that seeing that applications to change the bill closed on 15 January, the public did not have much time to request any changes to the bill.
Louw said that there was a “lack of consultation” for the bill to be implemented. He said, “The whole process was distorted and abused”.
Duncan said that by rushing the bill, the department of communications is “shooting itself in the foot”. She said, “It is short-sighted for the department not to have given the South African citizens the opportunity to thoroughly contemplate the bill.
She warned that this could lead to state control. The role of a public broadcaster Yeye said that the SABC is the only public broadcaster in South Africa and has an imperative and significant role as it is a platform for ordinary citizens to tell their stories.
He said that the government is only a shareholder of the SABC and he said, “The SABC is no longer a state broadcaster and is not a regulator of government policies.”
Yeye said that people do not need to fear the bill, it just requires their input. Public broadcasters in the world are sponsored by citizens through advertisements and alternate ways.
“It is your right to help if things fall apart,” he said. “No one can claim the public broadcaster as their own.”
Mawande Jack, from the Mandela Bay Media Association, said that if the bill is adopted it will allow the minister to have more power over the public broadcaster.
Moreover, he believes that the licensing system of funding the SABC is not working. He said the association feels that more information is needed on how finances will be managed and how the SABC will remain independent of state control.
Hendricks drew Jack’s points together and said that the minister would have unprecedented powers over the control of the content and quality of radio and television. He said that a state broadcaster is an uncritical broadcaster.
Duncan says that the bill allows “the state to be the only custodian”. She said that the minister has direct control over the SABC’s broadcasting through controlling the content.
“The bill will heighten SABC timidity,” as she described how the broadcaster could start to self-censor their information so as to maintain their funds.
She concluded saying that development that is proposed from above us no development at all. Yeye disagreed with the contenders of the bill.
He said that they place too much emphasis is on the power of the minister and forget about the role of other regulators such as the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.
