Motsoeneng’s protest blackout shows SABC is a ‘propaganda portal for political masters’

The Democratic Alliance’s shadow minister of communications‚ Phumzile Van Damme‚ said the party is “considering its legal options” after the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) Hlaudi Motsoeneng revealed that the public broadcaster will no longer air footage of service delivery protests.

“The reason Motsoeneng is allowed to make this absurd decision is as a result of the new SABC editorial policy approved in secret by Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi and the SABC board in February this year‚” said Van Damme.

She said that the policy gave complete control of all the SABC’s programming and news content to Motsoeneng‚ who was a “political appointee”.

“It is basic principle in many news organisations worldwide that editorial decisions should to be made by news editors‚ and not politically appointed management‚ in particular‚ in order insulate news decisions from any commercial or political considerations.

“It is clear that Mr Motsoeneng is using the editorial policy to deliver on the task to fully turn the SABC into a propaganda portal for his political masters at Luthuli House‚” she said.

Under the Broadcasting Act‚ as the country’s public broadcaster‚ the SABC has a responsibility to provide news and public affairs programming which meets the highest standards of journalism‚ in a fair‚ impartial and unbiased manner‚ she said.

“Censoring service delivery protests will fall foul of this requirement.”