The SABC bans the reading of newspaper headlines on the air

Yet another sweeping change affecting the SABC has been announced earlier today with COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, announcing that the broadcaster will no longer be reading newspaper headlines on the air, on tv or radio.

The reason? Apparently reading newspaper headlines, which is a practice done by many news broadcasters around the world, gives the newspapers free advertising and if the newspapers want exposure on the SABC, they will have to pay for it.

The problem is that many programs like Morning Live on SABC2 have the daily reading of the newspaper headlines on air to give viewers a sense of what is happening in the country and around the world from different editorial perspectives.

Worse than that, the SABC has a weekly media news show, Media Monitor, on the SABC News Channel whose entire objective it is to report on what the press at large are reporting and how they are doing it. How do you report what was reported at a newspaper if you, well, can't say what was reported. Will make for some interesting, and probably cringe worthy, viewing this coming Sunday.

The move has since been met with uproar, with the Democratic Alliance calling it yet another move to protect the ANC.