Date: 11/07/2003
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Shilowa: SABC editorial policy public meeting
ADDRESS BY GAUTENG PREMIER, MBHAZIMA SHILOWA, AT THE SABC EDITORIAL POLICY PUBLIC MEETING, Johannesburg, 11 July 2003
Master of Ceremonies
Chairperson of the SABC Board
Group Chief Executive
Ladies and Gentlemen
Over the past nine years we have made great progress towards meeting our goal of building a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
The 2001 Census results recently released by Statistics South Africa confirmed what many of us have always known, that many South Africans who endured pain and suffering inflicted upon them by centuries of apartheid neglect and injustice have experience a great deal of improvement in their quality of life.
The Census results affirm in a more scientific way the statement we made at the opening of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature that Gauteng is now a better place in which to live.
We have come this far in our journey to the new South Africa because right from the onset we had a well thought out plan for transformation - the Reconstruction and Development Programme. One of the key elements of the plan is its recognition of the people as drivers of the reconstruction and development process.
The RDP document says: "Reconstruction and development require a population that is empowered through expanded rights, meaningful information and education, and an institutional network fostering representative, participatory and direct democracy".
Guided by these principles of people centred and people driven governance, we made it possible for the people to influence the policies that we formulated and the programmes we put in place to implement our reconstruction and development programme.
An important, and perhaps the most crucial, element in enabling the people to drive the reconstruction and development process is access to information and effective two-way communication between government and the people.
The exchange of information within and among communities and between the democratic government and society as a two-way process will guarantee that the transformation process that we are all engaged in has the necessary mass input. While government has a role to play to directly engage with communities, the media has a very important role to play in this regard.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation, as a public broadcaster, has an even crucial role to play in facilitating effective communication within and between communities and the democratic government to enable the people to play their role as the drivers of the transformation process.
The process that we are all engaged in is important in that it gives people an opportunity to participate in the formulation of the policies that will guide the SABC in implementing its mandate.
I want to believe that the SABC is engaging in this public participation process because it truly believes that the people have an important role to play in policy formulation and not merely to comply with the law.
A key challenge facing the SABC as a public broadcaster is for it to determine the manner in which it can contribute to the country's growth and development, socio-economic transformation and reconciliation and nation building.
The public broadcaster also has a critical role to play in deepening democracy and in giving a voice to ordinary people. This includes enabling citizens to hold the government accountable and indeed giving government an opportunity to account to citizens in a manner that is not always subject to the dictates of commercial news values, the tyranny of the sound-bite or the newsworthiness of the Rand.
While the SABC, especially radio, has covered certain government programmes such as Imbizo, more can still be done to give viewers and listeners an opportunity to hear their government and to witness accountability in action.
We welcome the recent implementation of a language policy by the SABC, which provides for the broadcasting of news within SABC TV in all 11 official languages. Coupled with sign language interpreting, subtitling and various multilingual programmes, this will ensure that many of our people have access to relevant information necessary for their effective participation in democracy.
It would not be in the public interest were the SABC to return to its past role as a government propaganda machinery. At the same time, we would differ with those who would seek to equate objectivity and independence with negative coverage of government.
In the same way that the public broadcaster must reflect the views of government critics and the challenges facing government and society in general, so too should audiences have access to information on the good work government has done in implementing its mandate.
Suggestions have been made in the past on how the SABC could improve its coverage of government work. Some years back President Mbeki suggested that the SABC should allocate a weekly slot for government to report to the public on what it is doing. This was dismissed as an attempt by government to use the SABC as its propaganda instrument.
Unfortunately, until today the SABC still does not have a systematic way of informing the public about what government is doing to improve their lives and allow them to influence its work.
I think we should go back to President Mbeki's proposal that the SABC allocate a weekly slot on its TV and radio channels to allow government to report to the citizens and enable them to communicate with their government. It is possible for the SABC to allocate such time to government without compromising its editorial independence.
Gauteng's location within national politics and economic and social transformation demands of the SABC to look at how to cover news of the provincial legislature and the provincial government within the national context as opposed to a regional context.
The cosmopolitan nature of our province also means that we cannot be served by what the SABC would call regional news. The people of Gauteng listen to all SABC radio stations and watch all TV channels. How does the SABC ensure that they have access to what the provincial government is doing to improve their lives on a daily basis?
We often ask ourselves as to whether the public broadcaster is even aware of the economic revolution taking place in our province. If it is aware, how does it communicate this to the public? What role does the entertainment section play in promoting and highlighting the work that is being done at the Newtown Cultural Precinct? What role does the business section play in showing how the work we are doing through Blue IQ is helping change the economic landscape for the better? That is not propaganda, it is news.
At a broader level, the public broadcaster must always tell the story of the continued unfolding of South Africa's democracy; the story not just of the rich and the powerful, but also the poor and the vulnerable, women, people with disability, the elderly, the youth and people Living with AIDS. The SABC must ensure that it contributes actively so as not to ghettoise these groups within its programming. Like government, the SABC must take up the challenge of "mainstreaming" their interests within its programmes.
Together with government and the communities, the SABC needs to answer the question the question as to what its mandate is. Is it a commercial entity that also has to promote public interest? Or is it a public broadcaster that is supposed to serve the public interest? To the extent that it is possible to pursue the commercial route for sustainability, what should be the mix so that it does not compromise the need to inform the public without being influenced by commercial and financial interests?
One of the Gauteng government's key priorities is to stimulate economic growth and job creation. The communication and media sector represents an important growth sector, with potential to attract investment, create jobs and grow small and medium business and promote black economic empowerment.
The SABC has an important contribution to make in this regard, particularly through its procurement policies, as well as in promoting human resource development in the media and communication sector in general.
I hope that the SABC board will take into account many of the constructive comments that have been made on the draft policies that we have been discussing in the past few months when it finalises the policies.
I thank you and wish you a successful and fruitful meeting.
Issued by Gauteng Provincial Government
11 July 2003
Source: Gauteng Provincial Government
Title: Shilowa: SABC editorial policy public meeting
ADDRESS BY GAUTENG PREMIER, MBHAZIMA SHILOWA, AT THE SABC EDITORIAL POLICY PUBLIC MEETING, Johannesburg, 11 July 2003
Master of Ceremonies
Chairperson of the SABC Board
Group Chief Executive
Ladies and Gentlemen
Over the past nine years we have made great progress towards meeting our goal of building a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
The 2001 Census results recently released by Statistics South Africa confirmed what many of us have always known, that many South Africans who endured pain and suffering inflicted upon them by centuries of apartheid neglect and injustice have experience a great deal of improvement in their quality of life.
The Census results affirm in a more scientific way the statement we made at the opening of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature that Gauteng is now a better place in which to live.
We have come this far in our journey to the new South Africa because right from the onset we had a well thought out plan for transformation - the Reconstruction and Development Programme. One of the key elements of the plan is its recognition of the people as drivers of the reconstruction and development process.
The RDP document says: "Reconstruction and development require a population that is empowered through expanded rights, meaningful information and education, and an institutional network fostering representative, participatory and direct democracy".
Guided by these principles of people centred and people driven governance, we made it possible for the people to influence the policies that we formulated and the programmes we put in place to implement our reconstruction and development programme.
An important, and perhaps the most crucial, element in enabling the people to drive the reconstruction and development process is access to information and effective two-way communication between government and the people.
The exchange of information within and among communities and between the democratic government and society as a two-way process will guarantee that the transformation process that we are all engaged in has the necessary mass input. While government has a role to play to directly engage with communities, the media has a very important role to play in this regard.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation, as a public broadcaster, has an even crucial role to play in facilitating effective communication within and between communities and the democratic government to enable the people to play their role as the drivers of the transformation process.
The process that we are all engaged in is important in that it gives people an opportunity to participate in the formulation of the policies that will guide the SABC in implementing its mandate.
I want to believe that the SABC is engaging in this public participation process because it truly believes that the people have an important role to play in policy formulation and not merely to comply with the law.
A key challenge facing the SABC as a public broadcaster is for it to determine the manner in which it can contribute to the country's growth and development, socio-economic transformation and reconciliation and nation building.
The public broadcaster also has a critical role to play in deepening democracy and in giving a voice to ordinary people. This includes enabling citizens to hold the government accountable and indeed giving government an opportunity to account to citizens in a manner that is not always subject to the dictates of commercial news values, the tyranny of the sound-bite or the newsworthiness of the Rand.
While the SABC, especially radio, has covered certain government programmes such as Imbizo, more can still be done to give viewers and listeners an opportunity to hear their government and to witness accountability in action.
We welcome the recent implementation of a language policy by the SABC, which provides for the broadcasting of news within SABC TV in all 11 official languages. Coupled with sign language interpreting, subtitling and various multilingual programmes, this will ensure that many of our people have access to relevant information necessary for their effective participation in democracy.
It would not be in the public interest were the SABC to return to its past role as a government propaganda machinery. At the same time, we would differ with those who would seek to equate objectivity and independence with negative coverage of government.
In the same way that the public broadcaster must reflect the views of government critics and the challenges facing government and society in general, so too should audiences have access to information on the good work government has done in implementing its mandate.
Suggestions have been made in the past on how the SABC could improve its coverage of government work. Some years back President Mbeki suggested that the SABC should allocate a weekly slot for government to report to the public on what it is doing. This was dismissed as an attempt by government to use the SABC as its propaganda instrument.
Unfortunately, until today the SABC still does not have a systematic way of informing the public about what government is doing to improve their lives and allow them to influence its work.
I think we should go back to President Mbeki's proposal that the SABC allocate a weekly slot on its TV and radio channels to allow government to report to the citizens and enable them to communicate with their government. It is possible for the SABC to allocate such time to government without compromising its editorial independence.
Gauteng's location within national politics and economic and social transformation demands of the SABC to look at how to cover news of the provincial legislature and the provincial government within the national context as opposed to a regional context.
The cosmopolitan nature of our province also means that we cannot be served by what the SABC would call regional news. The people of Gauteng listen to all SABC radio stations and watch all TV channels. How does the SABC ensure that they have access to what the provincial government is doing to improve their lives on a daily basis?
We often ask ourselves as to whether the public broadcaster is even aware of the economic revolution taking place in our province. If it is aware, how does it communicate this to the public? What role does the entertainment section play in promoting and highlighting the work that is being done at the Newtown Cultural Precinct? What role does the business section play in showing how the work we are doing through Blue IQ is helping change the economic landscape for the better? That is not propaganda, it is news.
At a broader level, the public broadcaster must always tell the story of the continued unfolding of South Africa's democracy; the story not just of the rich and the powerful, but also the poor and the vulnerable, women, people with disability, the elderly, the youth and people Living with AIDS. The SABC must ensure that it contributes actively so as not to ghettoise these groups within its programming. Like government, the SABC must take up the challenge of "mainstreaming" their interests within its programmes.
Together with government and the communities, the SABC needs to answer the question the question as to what its mandate is. Is it a commercial entity that also has to promote public interest? Or is it a public broadcaster that is supposed to serve the public interest? To the extent that it is possible to pursue the commercial route for sustainability, what should be the mix so that it does not compromise the need to inform the public without being influenced by commercial and financial interests?
One of the Gauteng government's key priorities is to stimulate economic growth and job creation. The communication and media sector represents an important growth sector, with potential to attract investment, create jobs and grow small and medium business and promote black economic empowerment.
The SABC has an important contribution to make in this regard, particularly through its procurement policies, as well as in promoting human resource development in the media and communication sector in general.
I hope that the SABC board will take into account many of the constructive comments that have been made on the draft policies that we have been discussing in the past few months when it finalises the policies.
I thank you and wish you a successful and fruitful meeting.
Issued by Gauteng Provincial Government
11 July 2003
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