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 Mandelas 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.