TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 11

Part OtherDepts

Subsection 19

■ MEDIA COVERAGE

14 The print and broadcast media devoted extensive coverage to the Commission. Hearings, in particular, generated probably as much coverage as Parliament during the main periods of activities of the Commission.

15 Many newspapers appointed specialist correspondents to cover the Commission, virtually on a full-time basis. Among these were Beeld, Business Day, City Press, Rapport, the Sowetan and The Star in Johannesburg, The Cape Argus and The Cape Times in Cape Town and the Daily News in Durban. The appointment of journalists who built up a specialist knowledge of the workings of the Commission meant that there was a high quality of reportage of Commission activities, informed by a detailed understanding of the processes, and that a close watch was kept on the Commission’s internal operations. Business Day carried regular, often lengthy and informed editorial comment; the Sowetan carried extensive features as well as news coverage, and The Star carried a weekly feature on the Commission, devoting most of its editorial page to activities of the Commission. The Mail and Guardian regularly carried probing material on the Commission, including incisive commentaries or editorial features by the poet Antjie Krog.

16 The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Radio appointed a pool of journalists to ensure that the activities of the Commission were covered in all languages. Between April 1996, when hearings commenced, and September 1996, extensive news and current affairs coverage was supplemented by a weekly ‘wrap-up’ of Commission activities on all language stations, as well as live coverage of hearings on Radio 2000.

17 Financial constraints forced cancellation of the weekly summary programmes and the live coverage from 1 October 1996. However, the Commission secured a grant from the Norwegian government which enabled it to contract SABC Radio to restore these two features on a full-time basis from June 1997. An essential element of the agreement between the Commission and the SABC was full recognition of the latter’s editorial independence. The Commission had no control whatsoever over the contents of the SABC’s programming. In 1997, the SABC Radio ‘TRC team’ won the Pringle Medal for outstanding services to South African journalism.

18 The reasons for focusing on radio were outlined in the Department’s business plan:

In considering the best means of making sure that as many South Africans as possible are enabled and empowered to participate in the life and work of the Commission, it has judged radio the most effective communication medium for its proceedings to the widest number of people. Radio listenership figures far outstrip newspaper readership. In addition, radio broadcasts penetrate all corners of the country in the home languages of the majority of South Africans. For example, SABC radio stations have 3.3 million Zulu listeners, 1.6 million Xhosa listeners, 1.5 million seSotho listeners, one million seTswana listeners, almost 700,000 Afrikaans listeners, 450,000 listeners in English and 116,000 Venda listeners.

The view in the Commission is that the broadcast of its work in a wide range of languages is of paramount importance. Radio provides access to South Africans across-the-board: for the many who listen to radio as well as watch television, for those without television, for those who are not literate and for those in rural areas.

19 The Commission’s decision to allow cameras in hearings was one of the most important factors in creating the high public profile it enjoyed. The Commission was not a court and did not intend to run its hearings like court hearings, particularly the hearings organised by the Human Rights Violations Committee. Still, the Commission sought to ensure that the hearings had the dignity and decorum of court proceedings. Courts in most parts of the world do not allow cameras to cover their proceedings, and members of the Amnesty Committee, in particular, shared the instinctive reservations of judges on this issue. Because of these concerns, the Commission sought guidance from broadcasters in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom in the drawing up of guidelines for cameras in hearings. The Commission was particularly grateful to the BBC in London, supported financially by the British High Commission in South Africa, which sent the Commission a senior producer who had been involved in the making of documentary programmes on Scottish court cases. The Commission developed the guidelines with the assistance of broadcasters, and especially the BBC consultant. (It should be noted that, as people participating in hearings became more accustomed to the presence of cameras, the guidelines were relaxed in some instances.)

20 A difficulty never fully resolved was the unhappiness of ‘stills’ photographers from the press. Stills photographers were excluded from hearings because, as they move around, they are potentially more disruptive than television camera operators, who are confined to fixed positions. This meant that television cameras could follow every step of proceedings, while stills photographers could not. This appears to be a difficulty wherever video cameras are permitted in hearings.

21 The images relayed to the nation through television news bulletins and the SABC-TV weekly programme ‘TRC Special Report’ were probably the single most important factor in achieving a high public profile for the Commission. Repeatedly throughout the Commission process, hearings provided compelling images for those South Africans who watch television.

22 Commission hearings and activities featured frequently on television news bulletins during the first year of the Commission’s work. When multiple hearings were held every week, Commission-related news formed up to one-third of the main evening news bulletins.

23 SABC-TV demonstrated a similar commitment to that of the SABC Radio in relaying to South Africans the untold stories of their past in its weekly documentary, ‘TRC Special Report’. In 1996, the programme won a special award from the Foreign Correspondents’ Association.