The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was not overly prejudiced in its election coverage. This was the message that came across during a debate on the question of the SABC's impartiality in its election coverage, at the University of the Witwatersrand on Wednesday.

Speaking about the need for equitable coverage, Bheki Khumalo, chairperson of the SABC news committee on the SABC board and an African National Congress (ANC) member, explained the terms of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) policy. According to these regulations, he said, the ANC, as the biggest party, would get the most coverage. Election coverage was proportional, based on the last election results. Khumalo admitted, however, that the pursuit of proportionality as an editorial standard was potentially problematic.

In fact, possibly as a result of the proportionality principle, smaller parties fail to get airtime. However, William Bird, director of the Media Monitoring Africa group, explained that this was the case with all media, not just the SABC.

Khumalo conceded that decisions of coverage could possibly be better made in terms of newsworthiness and editorial capacity, and certainly the SABC's coverage of the Congress of the People (Cope), which had no seats in Parliament, suggests that newsworthiness had been a criterion in the broadcaster's election coverage, rather than the strict application of Icasa's regulations.

Nevertheless, Khumalo faced allegations that the SABC lacked independence.

Professor Anton Harber, who holds the Caxton Chair of Journalism at the university, said that the SABC as a public broadcaster "must be seen to be independent". If members of the SABC board were ANC cadres, then this affected the impression of independence.

Khumalo defended his position on the SABC board, saying that he did not see a conflict of interests. He said that he did not take his ANC membership card with him to SABC board meetings. If he behaved as a party cadre on the board, then he would lose all integrity, he said.