Page 182 - Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere

Public Storm and Independent Criticism

A particularly revealing source regarding the contentious exchanges be-
tween SABC and the religious communities is the retiring chairman’s report to
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the annual forum of the IFRB delivered on November 16, 1998. In this report
Bishop Peter Lee refers to the mandate of the IFRB, namely, “to make religious
representation on behalf of the religious community into the broad process of
broadcast policy revision in South Africa.” He alludes to the “considerable pub-
lic controversy” related to religious broadcasting between 1996 and 1998, a
controversy he attributes, ¤rst, to SABC’s unilateral decision “to breach the
agreement solemnly made with the religious community regarding religious
broadcasting” and, second, to the “drastic” reduction in the amounts of time
available for religious programs. He blames this decision for raising a “public
storm” about the place of religion generally on the airwaves not just of the pub-
lic broadcaster but also those of commercial and community license holders.
The chairman also talks of the “bad faith” created by SABC’s reneging on its
earlier commitment to the religious community, its public lies, and its poor
treatment of the RBP. This panel, according to Bishop Lee, “suffered huge frus-
tration and eventually found itself sidelined within the SABC”—a situation he
claims was ongoing. He also criticizes the lack of transparency regarding some
of the later elections to the panel. Furthermore, he strongly bemoans the lack
of reference to religious broadcasting in a government White Paper, despite rep-
resentations by the IFRB at various broadcasting policy colloquia and the earlier
“furore” over religious programming.
Bishop Lee vehemently criticizes the “secularizing tendency of the present
management” for ignoring the grassroots in®uence of religious organizations
and for “overriding the spirit of the Constitution.” He goes on to cite section
31 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution which guarantees the rights of cul-
tural, linguistic, and religious groups. Despite this provision, the broadcasting
White Paper still ominously omits the category of “religious” groups while re-
ferring to cultural and linguistic ones. Lee also regrets the lack of serious treat-
ment of religious issues in a published discussion paper on a code of conduct
for broadcasters, limiting consideration to “blasphemy and possible offence to
religious sensitivities.” He ends the report by pledging to lobby the government
on these issues and by urging the respective religious groupings to challenge this
continuing “process of being sidelined by public policy.”
When SABC announced cutbacks to cultural and religious programming in
1997 (75 percent reduction to 106 minutes per week, or 0.5 percent of its total
output), and informed the public that in the future all magazine programs
would be sourced from outside the Corporation, an “enraged public and relig-
ious community” joined the fray of confused and upset staffers and indepen-
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dents. Rev. Martin Frische, chairperson of the Association of Christian Broad-
casters, graphically accused the SABC of cutting the tree on which it sat by

Mediated Religion in South Africa 171