SABC Newsroom Guest Smokes Marujuana During On Air Interview

The formula for the SABC Newsroom show on the SABC News Channel at 9am is very simple: a technologically driven news bulletin simulcast on Youtube and engaging with viewers on social media. It is that simple. Well at least on paper.

But the bulletin just seems to court controversy more than any other bulletin on the SABC News Channel.

Today, May 11th SABC Newsroom guest, Andre du Plessis, decided he was going to start smoking marujuana, an illegal substance in South Africa, live on a national broadcast platform that is owned by the government of South Africa.

Just last month the actual anchor of Newsroom, Eben Jansen, was suspended for his conduct during an interview with a member of the EFF.

The strange part of the marujuana incident is that the SABC actually posted a clip of the incident on their Youtube page (something they did not have to do as it just draws attention to the situation and considering the whole bulletin is uploaded to Youtube in any case) with the description/statement , "The SABC Broadcaster and the SABC Newsroom does not condone the actions of our guest Andre Duplessis. The views expressed in this video clip/ interview are not that of the SABC and Associates, but that of the guest."

What makes thing even weirder, so to say is that there seems to be cheering du Plessis from whoever is behind the camera in the Cape town studio where he was for the interview, as pointed out by one of the people who have commented on the video.

The incident also caused the term "Dagga" to trend on twitter earlier today.

SABC News Takes Eben Jansen Off Air Indefinitely Following Controversial Interview

The SABC has pulled anchor Eben Jansen from the air following his controversial interview with EFF Spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi over the statue uprising currently taking place in South Africa.

The interview has gone viral since Thursday morning when it took place, being covered by many major news organisations and also led to 'Eben Jansen' becoming a Top Ten trending topic on Twittr for a great portion of Thursday.

The first minute or so of the interview goes smoothly, but things go downhill  quickly when Jansen asks Ndlozi about colonists that have historically gone to places and wiped away the history of the people native to whatever region was colonised and what made the current statue revolution different from those events. Ndlozi responded that the question was fundamentally wrong, which it was, and then Eben gets very defensive, interrupting his guest multiple times, raising his voice and depriving the viewers of hearing what could have been a very interesting opinion on the statue revolution.

Ndlozi is then rudely cut off.

On his removal from the air, SABC spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, said,“We were unhappy with what happened and have taken Eben off air. He will be off air until the matter has been dealt with between us and him.”

The really unlucky part of the whole situation, from a PR perspective for the SABC at least, is that out of all the news bulletins it airs across its array of channels including the 24 hour news channel, SABC News Channel, SABC 1, 2 and 3, Newsroom with Eben Jansen is the only programme that gets uploaded in its entirety onto Youtube, which likely caused the interview that took place in the morning, when most people are doing other things other than watching news, to go viral.An average episode of Newsroom with Eben Jansen typically gets about 300 views on Youtube but the edition featuring the interview has already been watched over 120 000 times (and has more down votes than up votes).

Review: All News Channels Cover "Opening Of Parliament" Live

As expected, ANN7, eNCA and SABC News all covered the opening of Parliament live, to varying degrees.

SABC News' coverage was done from  both their Auckland Park Studios as well as their studios in Cape Town, starting with Eben Jansen's edition of Newsroom and continuing throughout the day ith the bvarious programming, though they took regular breaks to cover other news, even airing some taped programming, which I think should have been preempted today.

eNCA covered the events at parliament during what was their regular news day. During Morning News Today, Justice Malala joined Uveka Rangappa to build up to the events. The channel also had Paula Chowles providing live reports from parliament. They have provided the least amount of coverage of the event, including allowing a sport report to continue just before 4pm when Justice Mogoeng started announcing the results, breaking in just as he announced Baleka Mbete had won the election to be the new speaker of parliament. They then carried her remarks along with the proceedings on who would be the new president. After 4pm, Gareth Edwards was joined by the stellar Angelo Fick to break down the proceedings as they happened.

Undoubtedly, once again, the star of the political coverage is ANN7. In their Midrand studios, workhorse Hajra Omarjee had been on air from about 10am providing political analysis as the events unfolded until the president was elected. She was joined by the usual anchors of the various slots, though she remained on air while the rest just stayed for their usual hours. They took a new, less traditional, approach to their in studio analysis where the anchors, who included the likes of Gladys Sithole and Nzinga Quntu, had a sort of casual conversation with Hajra about the proceedings. When there wasn't anything said, she provided well done commentary not talking to much or over anyone as commentary at live events tend to be. The only problem I had with them was that while all the other channels were carried a 'raw' feed of  the proceedings at parliament, they carried the feed from the parliamentary service (which is available about 3 channels up from them), which included their graphics and poor picture quality. If they really planning on being the place to go for politics, they should get the clean feed and not seem amateurish is basically playing another tv channel on theirs, seen below.

 

All three channels carried the proceedings live on their respective online platforms, ANN7 through their channels directr live feed at their official website, SABC News on their Youtube channel, eNCA on their website and Youtube channel, though they had technical difficulties that required everyone to refresh the feed. They were also plagued with other problems, including lack of sound. That's the number one news channel in the country for you.

Coverage continued on all three channels into the night.

All News Channels Carry President Zuma Voting

ANN7, eNCA and SABC News all carried president Zuma voting live.

eNCA had the worst coverage this time around: shaky camera work z(to the point where they had to cut the feed at times), technical errors while trying to contact their reporter on the ground, Thulasizwe Similane, who just opted to do a phone-in over the live pictures instead. Their camera barely even featured President Zuma until he entered the venue. With his post voting remarks, things didn't improve much either. One would have expected them to send among their best crew members to follow the president, I mean it's the president.

eNCA has become very much like CNN where nearly everything this morning has been labelled "Breaking News."

On SABC News their camera featured President Zuma since arrival, into the line and voting. The very good on air team of Ayanda Allie-Paine and Eben Jansen (who have been a great on air pair) discussed whether the person in front of him in the line should take a selfie with him as it would be legal to do so in the line. Eventually they started juxtaposing a split screen of Zuma on the one side and Mangosotho Buthelezi on the other side.

ANN7 broadcast the footage live whilst continuing their in studio discussion.

All three channels carried his post voting remarks live.