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.

ANN7 Quietly "Suspends" media show Between the Lines

Host on ANN7's Between the Lines, Asanda Magaqa, talking to frequent guest Moegsien Williams, editor of ANN7 and The New Age

ANN7, DStv 405, has silently suspended the excellent media review show, Between the Lines, which is hosted by the wonderful Asanda Magaqa.

I noticed two weeks ago that the show, which brings together various top editors to discuss the weeks top stories and how the media covers them, was no longer on the air.

Later, Asanda herself stated that the show has been "suspended," with no official word from the channel themselves.

Asanda joined ANN7 from Power FM earlier this year to launch Between the Lines, which has, or should I say had, a live weekly premiere on a Sunday morning at 9am.

Since the suspension, Asanda has also removed any references to ANN7 from her twitter profile, so it is highly unlikely that the show would be back, though I would LOVE to be wrong on this one.

Between the Lines, along with Media Monitor on SABC News were the only shows on SA television dedicated solely to covering the media. Though eNCA's Maggs on Media does have a segment about the, uhm, media every now and then, it is a show about advertising (for any writers out there that keep referring to that show as a media review show).

Between the Lines was really one of ANN7's top speciality programmes, along with Political Edge. Both shows never had a dull week in attracting top notch guests to discuss relevant topics.I would rather have had one of the channel's countless entertainment shows cancelled instead.