News boss sticks to her guns ahead of board inquiry.
SABC board member Professor Saths Cooper told the SABC editor-in-chief to interview the first lady Dr Tshepo Motsepe as a way of sweetening access to President Cyril Ramaphosa, the axed news boss Phathiswa Magopeni has revealed.
By December, relations between Magopeni and the SABC had soured. She faced negligence charges for the airing of an interdicted episode ofon SABC 3 about the tow-trucking industry. But she said this was a cover-up for growing political pressure on the SABC from the ANC which had boiled over in the final weekend before the November 2021 local government elections.
Magopeni’s statement says that editorial interference by some board members had become routine and that her response to Cooper was a standard one. The editor-in-chief role is the toughest editorial leadership role in the country and it has challenged previous incumbents like Joe Thloloe, Barney Mthombothi, the late Allister Sparks and Ameen Akhalwaya, all of whom faced editorial interference from boards and political pressure. This is because the SABC is still the largest and most powerful pace-setter of public square journalism..
“Mr Makhathini said in his view the King had a problem and was unfit to lead Isizwe samaZulu. On 07 June 2021 at 21h00 he shared a 1-hour-54-minute audio clip recorded from a royal family meeting discussing the King’s ‘problem’, that Mr Makhathini believed made him ineligible,” says Magopeni.“Mr Makhathini’s involvement in coordinating the impromptu interview with Mr Ramaphosa made me uncomfortable, even though I had a good relationship with him previously.
“I had less than 30 minutes to deliver a presentation on a process that would alter people’s lives and careers profoundly and permanently. CCMA records should confirm this. There was no opportunity for unions and employee representatives who were in that session to ask any questions about my presentation.
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