Cape Town - The SABC on Wednesday distanced itself from its chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s calls for media regulation.
The public broadcaster did so in a statement criticising Democratic Alliance MP Gavin Davis for his statement calling on new SABC chief executive officer Frans Matlala to rebuke Motsoeneng.
Said the SABC: “Mr. Motsoeneng as a citizen of the Republic has a right to express his views as enshrined in the constitution of South Africa in respect to freedom of speech. It is therefore imperative that the DA does not make an insinuation that this statement is the official pronouncement of the SABC, and to therefore draw the SABC into this matter is unfortunate and reckless.”
It added that Maghuve could not act against Motsoeneng for expressing his private views.
“The SABC board is not in any position to discipline the COO based on the fact that he is merely expressing his view as a citizen. It is therefore not in the best interest of the SABC to be drawn into this”.
On Tuesday, Motsoeneng told the portfolio committee on communications: “The Honourable Davis you should not be afraid for media to be regulated.
“Even Parliament is regulated. The judges are regulated. What is a sin if media are regulated? I think that is very important that all people should be regulated because what we are trying to say here we need people to be professional when they do their work,” he added, without specifying that the views were not that of his employer.
“You know sometimes people talk about sources. What is sources? Those sources they should be credible. Journalists should be able to go there and verify the facts, not just the sources that are not even credible, sometimes are misleading.
“This is what we are saying, there is nothing wrong about it… Why can’t we regulate journalists?”
Motsoeneng made the remarks during question time in a briefing on the performance and expenditure reports of state media entities attended by Communications Minister Faith Muthambi. On Monday, he had told a panel discussion organised by The New Age newspaper on the subject of transformation in the media that journalists lacked objectivity and were “lazy”.
In response, Davis commented: “This is the kind of nonsense that has made Hlaudi Motsoeneng and the SABC a laughing stock across South Africa.
“If anybody needs to be ‘regulated’, it is Hlaudi Motsoeneng himself. It is time for Motsoeneng’s boss, newly appointed Chief Executive Officer Frans Matlala, to pull the plug on his Chief Operations Officer. Every time Hlaudi opens his mouth, he damages the credibility of our public broadcaster.”
ANA