Snuki Zikalala is a naughty, naughty boy!

Radhakrishna Padayachie, the Deputy Minister in the Communication Department (South Africa), told Parliament that Snuki Zikalala was given a verbal warning by the board after the findings of the Sisulu commission were made available (via the Mail and Guardian). We at Sokwanele were so angered by Zikalala’s behaviour at the SABC that we wrote an article about it and mailed it to all our subscribers on 26 November last year. All the details are in this post here.

Here’s a reminder of what happened to bring you right up to date: Snuki Zikalala, the Managing Director of SABC News and Current Affairs implemented an informal policy – by instruction – to blacklist certain commentators from SABC news coverage. These included several highly credible commentators on the crisis in Zimbabwe, including Archbishop Pius Ncube, Moeletsi Mbeki, Trevor Ncube and Elinor Sisulu – all of these people have been very critical of Mugabe and the Zanu PF government. Zikalala’s actions can therefore be read as an attempt to stifle the prominent voices that speak up for the majority in our country. The end result being that South Africans would be restricted in their right to know about the human rights violations and suffering just north of their border.

An internal commission was set up to investigate the allegations of improper conduct against Snuki Zikalala, and they found that his informal blacklist policy could not be justified. When the commission’s findings were released, the Mail and Guardian set out to publish them and, tellingly, the SABC sought an injunction against the paper in an effort to prevent them from making the findings public. The High Court dismissed their application. (You can download a copy of the findings into the blacklist enquiry here (pdf).)

So what are the consequences for Snuki Zikalala? Well it appears that he’s been given a little verbal warning, a gentle slap on the wrist – and that’s about it. He has been

instructed to cooperate in the remedial steps that were recommended by the commission and [...] warned that should the conduct in question be found to occur in future, stronger action will be taken.

Are the words “you are a very naughty boy Snuki” really enough in the face of a deliberate attempt to use a position of power to impose personal bias on South African political discourse? I don’t think so. If I was South African I’d be deeply concerned. As a Zimbabwean I am very disappointed in the SABC’s handling of the matter since his actions have impacted on us too! I am not alone with my concerns:

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday joined the South African Communist Party (SACP) in condemning the “lenient” action taken against South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) head of news Snuki Zikalala over the controversial blacklisting issue.

“These are extremely serious charges, amounting to a conscious policy of political censorship and bias,” Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said.

“Yet the SABC has done little more than give the man responsible a polite talking-to in the form of a ‘verbal warning’ not to repeat his offences. It implies that they do not consider political censorship a serious matter,” Craven said.

And Jane Duncan, the executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute in South Africa, recently wrote a comment piece for the Mail and Guardian in which she called for a new board at the SABC:

It is increasingly apparent that the current SABC board is not fit to run the public broadcaster.

[...]

According to the Broadcasting Act, the board controls the affairs of the corporation, and must protect its freedom of expression, journalistic, creative and programming independence. As part of its licence conditions, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) also demands that SABC news and current affairs demonstrate impartiality, balance, independence and fairness.

The commission’s findings imply that by excluding various commentators on grounds that were not objectively defensible, Zikalala violated both the Act and the licence conditions.

The board must take ultimate responsibility for such violations.

Hear, hear!

UPDATE – 9 March 2007: South Africa blog have an amusing parody interview with Snuki Zikalala titled Lunch with Snuki

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, South Africa, SABC, Snuki Zikalala, South African Broadcasting Corporation, freedom of speech, media

This entry was posted by Hope on Friday, March 9th, 2007 at 6:02 am. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.