Future SABC boards - puppets, politicians or plonkers?

Will the new board members be media specialists, economists and marketers?

Not a hope, I reckon.

In spite of these professionals being exactly what the SABC needs if it wants to stop haemorrhaging money and completely destroying whatever pride and motivation is left among the rank and file who work for it.

Toeing the line

My guess is a board of puppets, politicians and myriad plonkers, who will be chosen solely on the basis of being able to toe the ANC line.

And if, by some remarkable miracle, the majority of the new board is indeed made up of people who know what broadcasting is all about and are politically neutral, then I will not only apologise profusely to the ANC but at the same time I will have to ask it why it has gone about this whole process in a way that will create an overwhelming perception by the entire South African population that the whole idea of the new act was to make sure that the SABC became an ANC mouth piece?

Frustration

As I mentioned a month or so ago on Bizcommunity, I suppose one can understand why it is so critical for the present parliamentary majority, the ANC, to want to control at least one part of the media. Since Polokwane and the resultant split in top level ANC ranks, the ANC has taken a pounding from SA's mass media.

Firing SABC board members and replacing them with party puppets is not going to help things at all. Because the SABC is only one voice and already political influence and subsequent factional infighting has seen the credibility of SABC news content sink to below the level of American banks right now. Which is about as far as one can sink these days.

But, on an optimistic note, it is going to rather cheer up a lot of media junkies as we see puppets being appointed and then, with even more fascination, watch the news and magazine programmes on the SABC trying to convince us that it's not totally and completely biased with its heads so far up the ANC's posterior it can count nose-hairs.

For more:

• IOL: 'Bill aims to make SABC an ANC puppet
  
• The Times Online: Bill moots increased control of SABC
  
• SABCnews.com: Broadcast Bill in Motlanthe's office for approval
  
• The Times Online: ANC warns SABC against bias
  
• Daily Dispatch Online: Top SABC official slams MPs for lack of support
  
• The Times Online: SABC board denies bias
  
• IOL: SABC's alleged COPE bias slammed