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South Africa: Commander Zikalala And SABC's Corridors of Fear
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
OPINION
9 May 2008
Posted to the web 9 May 2008
Charles Leonard
Johannesburg
BLOEMFONTEIN, are you there? Yes! Cape Town? We're here! Nelspruit ...?"
It was Monday, May 3 2004, and we were packed into an SABC news boardroom in Auckland Park, listening to the crackly ritual of checking if our colleagues in the other regions were connected for line-conference. The SABC bosses had waited for the elections in the previous month to be done and dusted before they announced the Commander's second coming to the corporation as news MD, so as not to make him an election issue.
Even his acolytes among us news executives looked worried as he walked in, no longer wearing his famous broad-lapel leather coat that we saw in all the pieces to camera he did in the formulaic "workers say, management says" stories when he was still a labour reporter.
Now Dr Snuki Zikalala was dressed in an expensive suit that looked a number or two too large over his shoulders. His glasses and haircut were trendier and I'm sure he must have had voice training when he was at the labour department as spokesman for "my minister", as he fondly kept calling his boss of the two previous years. He wasn't the only target of Zikalala's affection.
"I'll see to it that my president gets covered all the time!" he said, with his voice shooting up several octaves, which happened when he got excited. He repeated it, but -- and this is where the voice coaching must have kicked in -- this time with a steadier, more measured and deeper voice.
As reporter and as boss in his first stint, before the previous board under Vincent Maphai got rid of him, Zikalala had a reputation as a hard worker. "People must work hard -- there's no time for people that don't work ... they'll be out! ... they will be out."
This time, he glared with cold-fish eyes at his audience of news managers: "The board appointed me -- I report to them and they will fire me if I don't do my work."
He didn't need to lay it on much more than that. People fearfully remembered his previous spell as boss, enforcer and chief propagandist all too well.
Zikalala, who had apparently developed a taste for golf while he was at the labour department, could work on his handicap and didn't need be there all hours any more. His tactic was simple, and worked like a good horror movie. You didn't need to see the monster, because the mere suggestion was enough to petrify otherwise stable and confident journalists, and made them behave.
Then there were the "1984"-style spies and informers (many of them shameless remnants of the apartheid days, when they served Botha, Matanzima and Buthelezi with similar gusto), who would run to the Commander if they noticed any dissent, or would use his name to get government propaganda on air, even if it didn't come directly from him or the Union Buildings: "Snuki said you must ...." was all that was needed.
But the best thing for the Stalinist Zikalala was the new SABC board: it was interventionist in the worst sense of the word and shared his "vision" of what the broadcaster should be and do. Unlike the Maphai board, the one run by Eddie Funde simply didn't give a damn what any outsiders said or thought about it, or Zikalala. They also had no proper broadcasters or journalists among them who could say, "Hey chief, that's not how you cover news!"
And how they covered news! TV news boss Jimi Matthews, who was a proper broadcaster, fought hard to at least maintain a world-class technical standard. He also tried to ensure that some of the bright young reporters got mentored. But Zikalala and his gang simply wore him down, by endless meetings, back-stabbing and interference. In the end, Matthews did what most proper journalists did: first he joined SABC Sport and then he finally left the SABC. With Matthews gone, there was nobody senior on the input side to ensure journalistic and technical quality. With some exceptions, the standards dropped radically, with blue pictures, jump cuts, fuzzy pictures, poor audio and irrelevant washed-out file pictures the order of the day, not to forget those Snuki-aping singsong sign-offs. The journalism became even worse.
I left quicker than Matthews -- two months after Zikalala's arrival I was gone. His one big ally on the board, Christine Qunta, who was also head of the board subcommittee for human relations, gave me a call for my exit interview. When I told her I left was because I was scared of Zikalala, and didn't work very well under those circumstances, she laughed a big belly laugh down the line. I hope it was because Qunta thought I was joking, although I wasn't.
A lot has been written over the years about the exodus of good journalists from the SABC and the reasons they left. Many would concur that it was fear that made them quit. Ironically, Zikalala has run the place like the apparatchiks did under the apartheid regime: by suppressing any independent, creative thought and by toeing the party line.
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So now Zikalala has been suspended. Say the unlikely happens and the Commander gets his marching orders again, like he did in 2002, can the SABC become the public broadcaster it briefly was under people such as Zwelakhe Sisulu, Barney Mthombothi, Allister Sparks and Matthews?
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I think what is happening now at SABC is because ANC it involves too much.What Mr Zikalala did when he fired the most important person in the world of journalism Mrs Pippa Mary Green was a shameful.He deserve to be fire since he is not sutable for his job.I dont see it why he was suspended he was suppose to be fired for good. He does'nt listen to junior and senior staff.He deserve to be thrown out,i think he also should be blocked from getting any work in the media industry.
Snuki zikalalalala is an absolute arsehole of the highest order.like a turd, it has been flushed away like with one pull of the chain. Thank God!!! snuki, i have no idea how we are going to manage without you on monday, but we are going to give it a fu*cking huge try!!!!!!!!!
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