Johannesburg - The disciplinary hearing against three SABC journalists opposed to censorship at the public broadcaster has been postponed to next week.
Independent Media understands Special Assignment executive producer Busisiwe Ntuli, SAfm current affairs executive producer Krivani Pillay and senior investigative journalist Jacques Steenkamp asked for legal representative at their hearing on Friday morning.
The trio were on Thursday slapped with charges pertaining to illegal conduct after raising their concerns about censorship in a letter to chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who is widely viewed as President Jacob Zuma’s ally.
In their letter they described how the draconian censorship policy had turned the newsroom into a hub of “derision and despair” and how it had solicited negative sentiments from the public.
Seasoned journalists and civil society leaders addressed the throngs of picketers, dressed in black, who had gathered outside the SABC's Auckland Park headquarters in Joburg.
Former Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi, who attended the picket, lashed out at the “tragedy unfolding” at the broadcaster and characterised Motsoeneng as a “merciless dictator” and a tsar of the SABC.
“We are demanding that all the suspended journalists be reinstated with immediate effect, unconditionally,” he said.
Vavi also lashed out at the ANC leadership for endorsing censorship”.
The journalists' hearing follows the suspension of another three editorial staff: economics editor Thandeka Gqubule, Radio Sonder Grense executive editor Foeta Krige and senior journalist Suna Venter. The three were suspended after defying Motsoeneng’s orders not to cover a recent anti-censorship protest outside the SABC’s Auckland Park headquarters
Gqubule addressed the media outside her workplace on Friday, on behalf of her suspended colleagues, saying the “new masters” at the broadcaster were tampering with freedom of media and expression. “We wonder how undemocratic principles of journalism were allowed to breed in the public broadcaster,” she said.
Independent Media group executive editor Karima Brown said they would not allow the SABC to be used as a pawn of the governing party.
Motsoeneng, she said, shouldn't be be running the show at the broadcaster as “he is a threat to SABC'S ability to report freely and fairly in the elections”.
Political analyst and author, Eusebius McKaiser, said the broadcaster was critical to democracy.
“It is the first port of call for news and information ...we can't have an informed citizenry if the SABC doesn't work. This stuff is real, many of us are former employees of the SABC. We know what's happening in here,” he said.
Right2Know Campaign's Micah Reddy said the shenanigans at the SABC were clearly about a political agenda. “Things are falling apart, the propaganda machine is crumbling.”
Meanwhile, Vavi and other picket leaders are currently in a meeting with Motsoeneng, who is said to have watched the picket through the window in the comfort of his sky rise, airconditioned office.
The picketers were en route to the Constitution Hill where the SABC employees and civil society organisations were expected to address them.