Television News

Television News. The South African post-apartheidexperience offers new and original material inexploring the role of broadcasting in transition. Itlooks into the SABC and its news coverage in the tenyears from Nelson Mandela's inauguration in 1994. Itdoes so by means of qualitative and quantitativeanalysis of TV news output backed up by an extensiveprogramme of newsroom observation and interviewing ofkey executives and professionals involved with theSABC speaking to debates about nationhood media andpolitics in South Africa. In countries in transitionwhere processes of nation building are consideredvital the demands for uncritical journalism may bestrong. The analysed news coverage and excerpts fromthe interviews reveal that a serious reassertion ofcontrol over the public service broadcaster tookplace in South Africa towards the end of the firstdecade of democracy. An increased readiness is foundin the SABC and its news stories to confound theparty with the nation and the party leader with thenational leader. This development is described as aworrying tendency with a clear impact on thegoverning ethos and daily journalistic routines ofthe SABC news.