Cape Town - The South African National Editors’ Forum on Monday commended Jimi Matthews for resigning from the SABC on principle and said it was a sign of the extent to which the broadcaster had been turned into a mouthpiece for the ruling party.
“The SA National Editors Forum commends Acting Group CEO of the SABC Jimi Matthews on his stance to resign from the public broadcaster,” SANEF’s Mpumelelo Mkhabela said.
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“Matthews was at least on paper the most senior official of the corporation. That he feels there is a corrosive atmosphere that he as the CEO cannot do anything about speaks volumes about corporate governance within the SABC. The SABC is an asset of the South African public as a whole and that it is being turned into a state broadcaster that only serves the interests of the ruling party is wrong and must be condemned.”
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He drew a parallel between the SABC’s banning this month of visuals depicting violent protest and censorship at the broadcaster during the apartheid era.
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“The apartheid regime — through omissions and commission — used the SABC as a propaganda tool but was not able to dupe the South African public. It is the public that is short changed by this misuse of state resources and it is in the end the public that must ensure it fulfils its constitutional role as a public broadcaster.
“We call on the leadership of the SABC to urgently reverse its decision to censor the news and allow its journalists to work in a free environment that does not compromise their ethics.”
Matthews quit as acting chief executive officer of the SABC with immediate effect earlier on Monday, saying he could no longer be complicit in the way the company was run.
He worked at Reuters and e-TV before his appointment as head of news at the SABC in 2011 and became acting CEO last year.
Matthews said the role had seen him take decisions in recent months of which he was not proud, and apologised to those who had felt his actions betrayed journalistic principle.
Last week, he had contended in a court affidavit that the SABC could ill afford to lose the skills of its controversial chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng. It was filed with the Supreme Court of Appeal in an application for leave to appeal the Western Cape High Court ruling that Communications Minister Faith Muthambi’s decision to appoint Motsoeneng had been irrational and should be set aside.
The Democratic Alliance, which had launched the legal battle to have Motsoeneng removed, said on Monday it would now call for him to be fired immediately. The Inkatha Freedom Party said it held Matthews in high regard and feared that more good journalists would feel compelled to leave the SABC.
“The IFP is extremely concerned at the direction the SABC is taking. We fear that more key people of the calibre of Mr Matthews will also be leaving as they are being instructed to compromise on the journalistic values they hold so dear, such as freedom of press and objective, unbiased reporting.”
African News Agency