Television News: The South African Post-apartheid Experience

Television News. The South African post-apartheid
experience, offers new and original material in
exploring the role of broadcasting in transition. It
looks into the SABC and its news coverage in the ten
years from Nelson Mandela s inauguration in 1994. It
does so by means of qualitative and quantitative
analysis of TV news output, backed up by an extensive
programme of newsroom observation and interviewing of
key executives and professionals involved with the
SABC, speaking to debates about nationhood, media and
politics in South Africa. In countries in transition,
where processes of nation building are considered
vital, the demands for uncritical journalism may be
strong. The analysed news coverage, and excerpts from
the interviews reveal that a serious reassertion of
control over the public service broadcaster took
place in South Africa towards the end of the first
decade of democracy. An increased readiness is found
in the SABC and its news stories to confound the
party with the nation and the party leader with the
national leader. This development is described as a
worrying tendency with a clear impact on the
governing ethos and daily journalistic routines of
the SABC news.