South African public broadcaster SABC, which has often been accused of being biased in favour of the ruling ANC party, has come under fire from new breakaway party, the Congress of the People (COPE). The party claims that its Polokwane rally on Sunday, 18 April was not covered by the SABC.
According to SABC spokesperson Kaiser Kganyago, SABC News has rejected Cope’s insinuations that this blackout would have been influenced by political motives. “The COPE rally was covered from 14H00 on SABC2. There were technical glitches during the coverage which prompted our crew to resort to back-up measures, such as using a single camera. For some time, viewers could only get the audio while our technicians were busy fixing the error.
“The coverage, however, continued and was supplemented by extensive coverage in all our bulletins on Sunday evening. As a further goodwill gesture we re-broadcast the segment on SABC on Monday morning.”
Kganyago stressed that the SABC is mandated to give parties coverage that is in proportion to their representation in Parliament. “We consider it unfortunate that COPE would see it fit to attack the SABC on the ‘bias’ when they have received coverage that they were legally not entitled to in the first place.
“Interestingly, the SABC received criticism for its decision to cover COPE from its Convention right through its campaign. We have always stood by our decision to continue to give coverage to COPE as a service to our audiences who deserve to get the picture in its entirety.”
