Monocle

Rampant political interference at South Africa’s public broadcaster has been the rainbow nation’s worst-kept secret for years. Late last month, however, it gained legal authority with an explosive judgment handed down by a Johannesburg high court.

In 2006, the Sowetan newspaper revealed that the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) then head of news, Snuki Zikalala, had banned several journalists and commentators perceived as critical to the ANC ruling party from the airwaves. After the blacklist was denied, John Perlman, a respected talk show host then employed by the SABC, confirmed its existence.

The Freedom of Expression Institute requested that the broadcasting regulator investigate. When it refused (claiming the allegations were beyond its remit), the media rights watchdog took it to court.

In a devastating judgment, Judge CJ Claasen stated that SABC  “manipulated its news and current affairs… dishonestly tried to cover up this manipulation when it was publicly revealed, and that the SABC’s Board subsequently failed to take any action when the manipulation and dishonest cover-up was exposed by its own Commission of Enquiry.”

Claasen revealed that Zikalala skewed coverage of Zimbabwe’s rigged 2005 elections in favour of President Mugabe. In the same year, when a reporter filed reports of bottles being pelted at the premier of KwaZulu-Natal province during an ANC rally, Zikalala intervened to prevent this appearing on the evening TV news. He also allowed the premier airtime to deny what had happened, and for the politician’s bodyguards to intimidate the journalist in the studio.

With this body of evidence in mind, Claasen ripped apart the regulator’s arguments for refusing to investigate the SABC and has ordered it to launch a probe into the broadcaster’s editorial practices.

But will such an investigation halt the manipulation of an institution that many South Africans believe has morphed from being an idealistic public service during the heady aftermath of 1994′s first democratic election into a ruling party mouthpiece?

Rhoda Kadalie, a political commentator for the financial daily Business Day, doesn’t think so. “The Zuma administration did exactly what the Mbeki administration had done with the two previous boards and packed it with people who are perceived to be either affiliated and loyal to the ANC or sympathetic to it,” she says.

With a news machine packed with ANC lackeys and still reeling from an exodus of demoralised journalists, it will most likely take more than a mere enquiry to sweep away editorial bias at the SABC.

Thanks to an independent judiciary, vigilant civil society and robust political opposition, South Africa is still able to hold its public institutions like the SABC to account. However, it’s increasingly doubtful whether this censure is capable of curing the cancer of political partisanship ailing the public broadcaster.

Alexander Matthews is a Monocle staff writer