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1. The SABC saga that is playing out is a symptom of the malaise in our public institutions. There is quite a bit of populist posturing by journalists & observers especially around Chriselda Lewis’s engagement of group executive for news and current affairs Phathiswa Magopeni.
2. What did people expect? Turning around the SABC is going to be hard and will involve hard trade offs. Did we really think that there would be no consequences to the decades of misrule at the SABC. Hlaudi was bad, but so where his predecessors. SABC is on the same path as SAA.
3. The saga shows that we still have the same mess at the SABC. Magopeni immediately folded on the retrenchment notices. This suggests that either management had not thought through its plan or that it capitulated to the pressure.Raises questions about the capacity of management?
4. The board is similarly embarrassing. They having a public battle on the issue of retrenchments.Did they not deliberate on this at the board, & are they not aware that board proceedings are confidential. With board members like this, why are we surprised that SABC is in a mess.
5. Then there are journalists:Can you believe that some are encouraging Ace to get involved. He has obliged.The corrupt malevolent politician who should be in jail for corruption and incompetence,is being urged to get involved in the saga at the SABC?Have they no pride or shame?
6. What all of this demonstrates is the quality of appointments at the SABC. This is not a public broadcaster. It is a state broadcaster with deployees & dubious appointments from top to bottom. Like all state institutions it is an embarrassment to SA. Hang your heads in shame!
7. We need a frank & honest conversation about the SABC. Stop the political posturing & confront the issues.Building a real public broadcaster requires confronting the balance between subsidy and income earned.This should be tied to the public obligations that are required of it.
8. But building a public broadcaster also requires a different quality of appointment among journalists, management & the board. If we do not have the political courage for this, then the SABC losses & crises will continue & it will eventually go down the same path as SAA.
