13 June 2003
Earlier today, the South African Communist Party (SACP) submitted a 13-page comment on the Draft Editorial Policies of the South African Broadcasting Corporation published for public comment.
Below is a 1200 summary and extracts from the SACP submission. The full text of the submission will be available on the SACP website from 17 June, or on request. The summary below covers:
Business and Economic Analysis
The SACP calls for the representation of a diversity of views and opinions in economic, religious, political and social analysis. The SACP also calls on the SABC to developing and implement alternative and developmental economic indicators and analysis by the end of 2003 since current indicators used speak only to business and professionals.
Currently the SABC to relies exclusively on white male corporate economists, at the expense of a diversity of views and standpoints, for analysing the South African economic situation. “The economic indicators used by the SABC do not include important economic indicators such as poverty indicators, development indicators, inequality indicators, exploitative working conditions, service delivery indicators and similar such indices.”, argues the SACP submission.
Labour Coverage
The SACP calls on the SABC to better resource and increase its coverage of coverage of labour issues through the establishment of an SABC labour desk and a daily focus on labour news in all major news bulletins. The SACP also calls for the expansion of the new SABC Labour Slot into a dedicated and substantial weekly current affairs labour programme in SABC television and radio.
Upward Referral
The SACP is concerned at the recommendations for upward referral, and the upward approval of editorial decisions. In the view of the SACP, this raises the spectre of an invisible censor not accountable to a public process who will unilaterally decide on what is controversial. This also blurs the necessary distinction between management roles and editorial roles. This also opens the SABC to undue external influences.
The SACP calls on the SABC to review and withdraw these provisions from the editorial policies and to explore the development of relevant policies which address the justifications for the referral proposals without undermining editorial independence of editorial staff.
Sponsorship of Programmes
Even though the editorial policies commit the SABC to observe the ICASA regulations on the sponsorship of programmes, the SACP believes that daily SABC practice is in violation of these regulations. “The SABC is dominated by a dangerous ‘lotto mentality’, a ‘zama-zama morality’ through shows such as the Sanlam Money Game and “Wena Nemali Yakho” (in Umhlobo Wenene radio station).
The “Wena Nemali Yakho” (You and Your Money) programme is sponsored by People’s Bank and Old Mutual under the pretext of providing education and information on financial literacy (savings, etc.). Instead of this, the programme is an advertisement of a range products and services of People’s Bank and Old Mutual.
In this regard, the SACP calls on the SABC to review all sponsored programmes and for checks and balances in order to ensure compliance with the ICASA regulations The SACP also calls for a review of the impact and extent of commercial influence and advertisements in children’s programmes.
Religion
The SACP submission expresses concern that SABC religious programmes dominated by crusading evangelisation. The SACP accepts that there must be space for this. However, this exclusive crusading evangelisation effectively undermines freedom of religion and blurs the constitutionally enshrined separation of the state and religion. In the view of the SACP, freedom of religion also includes freedom from religion and not to believe in religion.
The SACP calls on the SABC to review existing religious programmes with the intention to promote comparative education and analysis of religions and other forms of belief and non-belief, and tolerance of different religious beliefs and non-beliefs rather than exclusive crusading evangelisation. The SACP submission also argues for the increased exposure of African traditional religions, Islam, Judaism Hinduism, Buddhism and other minority religions.
Gender
The SACP calls on the SABC to immediately review and cancel all radio dramas and other programmes which reinforce gender oppression. The SACP also calls on the SABC to start a dialogue on gender and the SABC during 2003. These calls are based on the observation that the SABC does not cover women sufficiently and it reinforces gender stereotypes.
“Where women are covered, the SABC continues to project them as welfare cases, passive recipients, vulnerable groups needing protection and as physical objects (beauty queens and models). All these images ignore women as independent, intellectual beings, as leaders, decision-makers, academics, active agents for change, and so on. Many SABC programmes do not portray men as care-takers. Instead men are more often represented in roles which reinforce gender oppression. In the SABC, men continue to report more often on political and labour issues than women”, argues the submission.
Current Affairs
The SACP calls on the SACP to urgently review of all current affairs programmes in African-language radio stations with the intention to ensure that the time allocation for broadcasting of current affairs programmes in these radio stations is increased by at least 50% by the end of 2004.
The submission compares the time that Umhlobo Wenene ad SAFM allocate for current affairs. Umhlobo Wenene allocates about 15 hours a week and SAFM allocates about 67 hours a week for current affairs.
“Like Umhlobo Wenene, the 8 other African-language SABC radio stations, which reach out to at least 15 million listeners, allocate similar time for current affairs This means that 0,287 million who listen to SAFM have thorough and high quality information on current affairs whereas the majority receive second-class treatment on important and complex national debates which are so central to the improvement of their lives. The 0,287 million listeners of SAFM are mainly middle class with good professions, education and access to financial and material resources. In contrast, the 15 million listeners of African-language listeners are overwhelmingly poor, without resources, without adequate social services, financial and material resources. In other words, the existing time allocation for current affairs programmes in African-language stations undermines the intellectual integrity of the majority of South Africans. In effect, this dispensation is a gross violation of the human rights of the majority of South Africans as they are denied their right to communication and information. This also reinforces the rural-urban divide and apartheid geography. “, argues the SACP submission.
SABC Funding
The SACP will engage the SABC, government, parliament and the public to review the current framework which informs SABC funding and the review of the regressive nature of TV licence fees.
The SACP believes that the SABC must not be driven by the logic of the private market and thus it must not be subject to commercialisation pressures. “Any gradual reduction of public funding will lead the public broadcaster to focus on commercially viable activities at the expense of the SABC’s public service mandates…. The current structure of TV Licence Fees is a barrier for the unemployed poor and exploited workers. When the poor cannot afford to pay for these licences, they are criminalised. In effect, license fees are a regressive form of taxation and punitive cost-recovery.”
Public Input
In the submission, the SACP calls on the SABC to expand the public input process through the publication of the editorial policies in all official languages; the decentralisation of the venues/location of the public meetings in order to allow the maximum possible access by the general public and the targeting, mobilisation and empowerment of marginalised sectors in order that they make considered inputs to the public meetings. The SACP identifies these sectors as including youth, women, rural organisations, community based organisations, people living with disabilities, the elderly, organised workers and trade unions, children and communities of faith.
Contact
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media, Information & Publicity
South African Communist Party
Tel: 27 11 339-3621/2, Fax: 27 11 339-4244
Cell: 072 275 4723 (temporary number)
Email - mazibuko@sacp.org.za