eNCA's Robyn Kriel Once Again the Reporter to watch (and follow) for news on the latest of the two explosions that rocked Kenya

eNCA's East Africa Bureau Chief Robyn Kriel providing a live update on the latest on the bombings in Kenya on NewsNight

eNCA's East Africa bureau chief, Robyn Kriel, is once again providing exceptional, on the ground coverage of the two bommings that rocked Kenya earlier today, with live updates right through the day, likely continuing well into the weekend.

eNCA is the only local news channel that has a reporter reporting live on the ground, with ANN7 and SABC News both covering the story, but using either stock footage or footage acquired from a news service.

Robyn is also providing exceptional rolling coverage on social media, as she always does. He Twitter handle is @robynkriel.

Election Coverage Review: ANN7

The youngest news channel in the country, ANN7, has really gained popularity for what has been very in depth election coverage. One could argue hat building up to the elections, they had more coverage than both eNCA and SABC News.

The channel, who has mainly previously unknown on air talent (along with quite a few people that jumped ship from the likes of eNCA), has really put on excellent coverage from the crack of dawn, when usual breakfast anchor Peter van Onselen carried the hours 6am to 10am after doing prime time anchoring just the night before. Their coverage consisted of a decent mix of broadcasting from their studios in Midrand and the IEC Election Centre. They also mainly used the graphics package associated with one of their main election programs, SA Decides



From 10-12pm, the host of their daily elections program, SA Decides, took over from him in the studio. I really liked that they had her play a pivotal role throughout their coverage. They really shouldn't drop the ball on this.

I was however disappointed in the role played by editor in chief Moegsien Williams' role in the coverage. He was just a panelist during the 12-2pm slot. Gladys Sithole, the channel's weekend prime time anchor was up next, anchoring from 2pm-4pm
Senior Anchor Chantal Rutter Dros anchored from the IEC Election Centre from 6pm to 9pm where she had an exceptional panel with her, along with senior political Hajra Omarjeee anchored from their studio. Hajra had a particularly busy day: part anchor, part analyst and part reporter. She really has been one of the bigger stars of this election.

Amazing pic from Hajra Omarjee's Twitter

At 9pm when the votes closed, they brought the too large and distracting election graphics that have been used for Election Tracker back, for the first hour or so just flashing zeros.

Desmond Tutu voting live. While he had usually been covered as a prominent politician would when they voted, this time around only ANN7 covered him voting live.

Overall, I must say that their panelists that they had on during the day weren't all that bright, though some were quite good and they had too few of them on to the point that they had been on air for quite a few hours and after a while one can notice that they have screen fatigue. But they more than made up for this on their live shots and inserts(even though some were done using internet connections, which I am not too fond of), including showing all of the bigger politicans voting live. They were also the only channel to show Desmond Tutu voting live as the others were showing a largely uneventful news briefing from the IEC Centre. They had exceptional shots of the voting lines from their chopper and reallyu gave you a on the ground feel of the elections. At the end of the night, they had a sort of highlights package of the days events that was well produced considering the amount of content that had to be editied in that short period of time. It is really hard to think that the same channel that was so horrendous just a few months ago could produce election coverage of the calibre that they did.

They were also able to get guests of quite a high caliber on the channel, including Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and even Police Commisioner Riah Phiyega to give an update of if there had been any incidents thus far. Her interview was quite a while.

Watching their coverage of the build up to and post elections has really made me question whether Ann7 might just be the place to go for politics in the South African media. They have gained great momentum during the elections coverage, it is now up to them to build on it. Them building on it is going to be a news junkies dream to follow.

Election Coverage Review: eNCA

Courtesy of Patrick Conroy's Twitter

Of all three news channels we have, eNCA undoubtedly had the least sensational coverage (not necessarily bad).

Uveka Rangappa, who anchored from 6am to 12pm on election day got to cover all the bigger politicians in the country  voting. Here, she is covering President Zuma voting from his hometown in Nkandla.

Whilst the other channels broadcast primarily from the IEC Election Centre (and in ANN7's case, a decent amount from the studion), eNCA decided to stick with their broadcast originating from their Hyde Park studios, away from the hustle and bustle that goes along with being able to broadcast from the IEC Centre. This was in contrast to the atmosphere created on the other channels.

Gareth Edwards at the big screen from which he did most of his presentations for an extended period of Election day. The screen was controlled by him using the two iPads seen on the desk in front of him.

They also went with the format of their previous election coverage of having the main studio anchor anchoring a WHOPPING SIX HOURS of coverage on end. This started off with Uveka Rangappa from 6am to 12pm, Siki Mgabadeli(see paragraph below) taking over from her until 6pm, Joanne Joseph taking us to midnight while the team of eNCA Africa Edition co-anchored the overnight hours on Wednesday evening until 6am when Uveka was back (Do not judge me for not knowing their names. Not even Joanne Jospehs knew their names as she just said at the top of the hour "the next team" takes over whereas prior to this every anchor would actually give the name of who would follow them). Gareth Edwards was at the touch screen for most of the day from about 6am until nearly six pm, spending most of his birthday providing live analysis on the numbers around the election

Siki Mgabadeli anchored the channel's afternoon coverage.

I am very disappointed that the channel had Siki Mgabadeli anchor six hours of the coverage, considering that she is not even an anchor at the channel. Elections are a time to showcase your best anchors and reporters so that the casual viewers who tune in for a big event like elections could potentially be enticed into tuning in again after the news fades. Instead of doing this, the channel decided to showcase the presenter of a seasonal one hour per week show, The Big Debate (which we can now almost certainly guarantee will be back for a new season ) for a full six hours. I also do not see how her presenting that show justifies her getting the slot ahead of the likes of young talent like Gareth Edwards, who had to play second fiddle to her, as she is primarily a business anchor, having had experiences at channels like CNBC Africa and Summit TV. Her first half an hour was not the best news reading, to say the least, the next half hour Gareth played a bigger role and from there she took over the driving seat becoming better in the space of the long six hour afternoon shift she carried, admittedly.

News Night anchors Iman Rappetti and Jeremy Maggs presented coverage from the IEC Results Centre. Courtesy: Iman Rappetti's Twitter

I must say I admired the channels "All hands on deck" approach when it came to having reporters literally stationed around the country. Late night, weekend and fill in anchor Fenly Foxen was used as a reporter, along with eNews Late Edition and weekend edition hosts Robyn Smith and Amy McIver were used as reporters as well, Robyn from the Northern Cape and Amy as an exceptional interviewer at the IEC Centre (she should really take on the role more often). All senior anchors (Jeremy Maggs, Dan Moyane and Iman Rappetti) anchored short panel sessions from the IEC Centre. eNCA was the only channel that used their "studio" at the IEC  Centre as "soft segments" (segments done from a couch).

The channel had reporters at all of the IEC's provincial centres

The channel carried a special edition of Late Night News with the brilliant Loyiso Gola at 9:30pm, which I am not sure was a smart move as this was just thirty minutes after polls officially closed and thus there must have been a large amount of live crossings that could have been done in that slot.

JoAnne Jospeh along with analysts Angelo Fick and Justice Malala carried the channels Election Day coverage from 6pm to midnight

Their graphics for the election results which started appearing at 9pm were just the right size, not too small or too big and distracting (like ANN's). As results started to trickle in Joanne Joseph kept consulting with her brilliant panel of Angelo Fick (who is now a permanent member of the eNCA team) and Justice Malala, who all were great initially, started fading as time ticked by. What do you expect if you going to be speaking to the same two people for six hours?

Post midnight, the first major interview the channel got was with with DA leader Hellen Zille who spoke to now midmorning anchor CathyMohlahlana from the IEC Election Centre.

Overall, this was amazing coverage, but could have presented more excitingly.

Desmond Tutu Votes

ANN7 was the only news channel that showed Desmond Tutu voting LIVE.

SABC News and eNCA instead opted to broadcast a press conference at the IEC Central Operations Centre. eNCA used SABC News' feed for the presser because at the end they accidentally broadcast the SABC panelists.

In prior elections, Demond Tutu's vote used to be covered with the same level of coverage given to the president.

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.

All News Channels Carry Helen Zille Voting Live

ANN7, eNCA and SABC News all carried Official Opposition leader Helen Zille casting her ballot in Rondebosch at just after 9am.

Following this, eNCA's Paula Chowles got the first interview with her just after she cast her ballot. The other channels initially broadcast this part with silence but after realising Paula would be asking quite a few questions, decided to just listen in. She did go on, however, to speak to representitives of all three channels.

All seemed to go well but at 09:18, SABC News' male co anchor (the afrikaans 7pm anchor) noted that Helen had made a mistake by throwing both ballots in one box. They immediately brought their on air analyst on what this means, but he then revealed that it is okay as it will be sorted when it is counted. That was a perfect moment of the right guest being there at the right time as they were discussing electoral processes and possible mistakes that could be made.

Night-before-Election Coverage

As South Africa gears up for the 2014 National Election, the three main news channels are all running special programming building up to tomorrows elections.

eNCA's special st constructed in their main studio in their Hyde Park facilities

On eNCA, former mid morning duo of Joanne Joseph and Gareth Edwards (who has amazing chemistry together) anchored a special broadcast in the slot of what should be News Night, but, as hinted in the press release posted earlier, will just be known as an Elections broadcast (though the anchors did slip the name News Night every now and then. Other times you could see them watching their words to mention the name of the program. Generally I am against senior anchors not anchoring their own slots around days when their is major news to cover (in this case, Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti), I must say that the duo of Gareth Edwards and Joanne Jospehs will still really go a long way. The program was mainly anchored by Joanne, though, who interviewed the excellentAngelo Fick intermittently throughout the broadcast. Iman Rappetti hosted veteran journalists Dan Moyane (of eNCA), Pippa Green and Nkosi Milton at the IEC Centre


SABC News broadcast a special edition of On The Trail at 9pm, anchored by Contributing Editor Vuyo Mvoku (who has contributed greatly to their coverage) which included representatives from smaller parties like Azapo .

On ANN7 Peter Van Onselen, the Vuka Africa host was anchoring from the studio while Chantal Rutter-Dros hosted a panel from the IEC Operations Center from 7pm to 9pm in what was a really feel good show I must say, though it was also mainly anchored by the female anchor as Peter was only brought in occasionally.

SABC Election Broadcast Plans

One of the SABC's hitech outside broadcast units.(SABC) (C) SABC

As always, South Africa's public broadcaster is planning major coverage of Wednesday's national election.

“I am extremely pleased with the checks and balances which have been put in place by our SABC team for the coverage of these elections. With our extensive broadcast plans, via our television, radio and social media platforms, we promise to deliver the best elections coverage in the country”. These are the words of SABC chairperson Ms. Ellen Tshabalala.

Their coverage kicks of LIVE at 5am with a special extended edition of Morning Live, LIVE from the IEC's Main Operations Centre in Pretoria (Simulcast live on both the SABC News Channel and SABC 2 for the full duration of the breakfast show), ending at 9am. SABC 2 returns for another special broadcast at 11am. Coverage will be uninterrupted on SABC News until 1pm (the traditional Lunchtime News slot, simulcast on SABC 3).

Their coverage will originate nearly exclusively from the IEC's Main Operations Centre with many reporters located throughout the country providing live updates.

They are also touting their 'exciting graphics' that will be used for the elections. 

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ANN7 Election Plans

South Africa's newest news channel has released their election coverage plans ahead of tomorrow, May 7th, election day.

Their coverage will originate mainly from the IEC's National Results Operations Centre, though their studio back in Midrand wil also be used.

Like the rest of the news channels, they will be providing none stop rolling coverage from 6am to 11pm.

Their 9 teams around the country that has been featured in their special SA Decides program will provide updates throughout the day and the rest of the week as results start trickling in. They also have reporters stationed at ALL provincial IEC nerve centres.

Their coverage will be led by chief editor (and co host of Election Tracker) Moegsien Williams, along with senior anchor of ANN7 Prime (along with Election Tracker) Chantal Rutter Dros, senior political analyst (Host of Political Edge and gem of their election coverage) Hajra Omarjee and senior political editor Ricky Naidoo. Expect the likes of Vuka Africa host Peter van Onselen to be featured prominantly.

eTV and eNCA "Official" Election Broadcast Plans

Full coverage and analysis later tonight, for now here is their press release Press release:

 Normal programming will be interrupted as e.tv will be simulcasting the 2014 Elections coverage live with eNCA from Wednesday, 7 May 2014 to Friday, 9 May 2014.

e.tv and eNCA will bring you extensive live coverage from around the country, up-to-the-minute expert analysis and special reports of South Africa’s fifth democratic elections.

Also, the eNCA team, domestic and international, will be doing extensive coverage of the elections and programming will also change.

Some of the changes are as follows:

e.tv

Wednesday, 7 May

5:30AM - Checkpoint (episode 5 of Season 1) will replace “eNews Sunrise
6 to 9AM - Elections 2014
1 to 2:30PM - Elections 2014
10:05 to 11:00PM - Elections 2014

Thursday, 8 May

5:30 - Against All Odds with Mpho Lakaje
6 to 9AM - Elections 2014
1 to 2:30PM - Elections 2014

eNCA
Elections 2014 will replace all General News Bulletins and Current Affairs slots, unless otherwise indicated below:

Wednesday, 7 May
• 6AM to 9PM - Elections 2014
• Morning News Today titles will change to Elections 2014
• Checkpoint Episode 5 will be replaced by Elections 2014
• Against All Odds with Mpho Lakaje will be replaced by Elections 2014
• News Day titles will change to Elections 2014
• News Night titles will change to Elections 2014
• General News will be replaced by Late Nite News With Loyiso Gola
• Maggs On Media - will be replaced by Late Nite News With Loyiso Gola
• The eNCA Africa Edition Repeat loop will be replaced by Elections 2014

Thursday, 8 May

• Morning News Today titles will change to Elections 2014
• Africa 360 - Episode 18 will be replaced by Elections 2014
• Judge for Yourself will be replaced by Elections 2014
• News Day titles will change to Elections 2014
• Checkpoint Episode 5 will be replaced by Elections 2014
• News Night titles will change to Elections 2014
• Tech Report, The will be replaced by Elections 2014
• The eNCA Africa Edition Repeat - Episode 167” loop will be replaced by  Elections 2014

Friday, 9 May

• Morning News Today titles will change to Elections 2014
• News Day titles will change to Elections 2014
• News Night titles will change to Elections 2014

Feel It... It is Here

Lights. Camera. Action.

With three 24 hour news channels, many websites and social media, the 2014 General Election is slated to be the most covered one in history.

All three news channels are to broadcast live from the IEC's Results Operations Centre, all which will be located next to each other, which I am sure will lead to a few awkward moments to say the least.Some radio stations will be broadcasting from the location as well.
 

SABC News programming coming from the IEC Election Centre this week

 

As we build up to Wednesday's big election, the SABC has already moved to their broadcast facilities from which their electoral programming will originate from, as it has been the case over the last few elections.

 The first of their programming to broadcast from the facility was their weekly Sunday Debates program, which ended this past Sunday with what was a great debate (available at their Youtube page).

Morning Live anchor Leanne Manas during rehearsals on Sunday

The next day, Monday morning, Morning Live broadcast from the facility (as the will be doing for the full week) as has been their tradition to do so. This year, the program will be anchored by Leanne Manas and Sthembile Sithole. It marks ten years since Leanne Manas and the late Vuyo Mbuli debuted as an onscreen duo at the 2004 National Elections.
 (Pictures from Sthembile Sithole's Twitter)

The first Prime Time Program to be broadcast from the facility will be SABC3's/SABC News's Democracy20, another special election program

As thr May 7th Election Date Draws Nearer, ANN7 releases their final Projections in their Unprecedented Opinion Poll

On Sunday, May7 4th, ANN7 Senior Anchor Chantale Rutter Dros anchored a special [and final] Sunday edition of ANN7's Election Tracker program, which tracked the progress of political parties over the last six weeks.

This is a picture from an older edition. As such, the figures here represent an earlier poll

Though their partner in the poll, C-Voter, recently came under fire for allegedly falsifying information in their work in the Indian elections, their work in South Africa was largely uncontroversial. Below find the final results of their poll, revealed live during the 6pm hour of their extended broadcast.

It will be interesting to see exactly how 'accurate'  these figures turn out to be because, as senior political analyst Hajra Omarjee stated earlier in the day, South Africa has no 'science' when it comes to these kind of polls as they have absolutely no track record due to it being the first time it has ever been used.

Many a time over the past six weeks the poll itself has become a bigger attraction than its results. Political parties like the IFP have disputed the results, stating that not enough zulu people were consulted for the poll while others have qestioned their sample size overall. Often they would discuss these issues live on the air, like when COPE president Mosiuoa Lekota, who flat out rejected its results when he was on the show, did.

One thing I must say I enjoyed about this show is how it showcased exactly how dynamic ANN7's studio/newsroom is as they were able to seamlessly transition from one side of the rooom to the other.

The poll conducted by ANN7 was heralded as being quite a big deal. Come Wednesday, we will know exactly how  seriously to take it in the future.

ANN7 Providing Rolling Coverage of ANC "Mass Rally"

ANN7 starte early Sunday morning, 4 May, with providing on location rolling coverage of the ANC's Siyanqoba rally, the one traditionally held before a major election where over 200 000 ANC supporters are expected to attend this year.

Hajra Omarjee is anchoring from the National Stadium from the media suite usually used by Supersport during major soccer events from the stadium from where she is doing interviews with members from the ranks of the party. The usual anchors are still in studio, but are mainly used to give things like traffic updates to those attending.

This is not Omarjee's  first major ANC event this week as she anchored their May Day rally on Thursday, interestingly the only news channel to do so.

It is going to be a long day for Omarjee from anchoring the coverage in the morning to doing her actaul show, the well done Political Edge at 8pm.

The other news channels are also expected to carry this rally live when it starts. It will also be shown on SABC2 live from 11:00. If you would remember, the last time the ANC ran a major rally before an election, it was broadcast across all three the SABC's free to air channels, this time only on one.

eNCA has aired this week's Maggs on Media from 8:30am as the rally will be broadcast in its traditional slot. The channel has reporter Thula Sims at the ANC rally  while Bongiwe Khumalo is at the EFF's one

Election Coverage

Over on eNCA, Jeremy Maggs hosted representitives of the ANC and DA for their final election debate live from Wits University. I really felt they should have involved more of the smaller parties, to cap off what has generally been a good series of debates. This portrayed the elections as a two horse race and was just a big argument between the differences in the governance of the DA run Western Cape, and the ANC run Gauteng, the two most hotly contested provinces in the upcoming elections.

Over on SABC News, during the same time slot, Francis Herd had a special edition of her business report show which I found rather good. She was joined by economist Dawie Roodt, and together they grilled first a rep from the EFF and then Agang over their respective parties' economic plans. This came across as interesting television as the policies of the EFF (slanting towards socialism) and Agang's (more capitalist) were in stark contrast of each other. The questions were great and really brought the best answers on the topic at hand out from the two.

Special Election Programming as eNCA, SABC and ANN7 Ramps Up Coverage with May 7th Election Date Nears

As the May 7th Election draws nearer, South Africa's three news channels are all running special coverage building up to the event.

(c) eNCA

eNCA, the most watched news channel in the country, has a special series of election debates running Wednesday evenings, the last of which was solely on the province of Gauteng, the first of which included the likes of Helen Zille.

 They also running special election coverage in their standard news bulletins,  along with an increasing amount of interviews with analysts approaching the elections from different perspectives, tending to focus on mining.
They also have short inserts where political heavyweights answer questions set by the youth in a set time frame.

The other news channels seem to be going all out as well.

You could argue that the channel with the most election coverage thus far is ANN7.

Here, Moegsien Williams, Editor in Chief of ANN7 is seen along with the team of their daily two hour show, SA Decides. Coutesy: ann7.com

They have dedicated hours upon hours of their schedule to the elections and, when one looks at the substance of their coverage, you could argue that they have invested a great deal of resources into this election, I would argue more than any channel.
They have their daily election program, SA Decides from 5pm to 7pm where they catch up with fifty journalists spread around the country covering the elections solely.

Courtesy: ann7.com

In addition to this, they conducted a never before seen in South African history poll on election trends. Every Thursday at 8pm they catch up with the latest trends in their Election Tracker program, that is repeated several times over the weekend, along with new editions being broadcast on Saturday and Sunday. The Thursday edition is anchored by chief anchor Chantel Rutter Dros, along with editor in chief, Moegsien Williams and a really exceptional panel, seen above.
 One of the stars of their election coverage, if not the biggest, has to be Hajra Omarjee. She anchors the weekly show Political Edge on Sundays at 8pm. It was initally a half an hour show, but since it tends to always run over time (one week over an hour overtime) it has since been extended to an hour. She has really developed in her abilities to act as a moderator of debate, often calling guests out on their claims and sticking to an issue until it is answered to a satisfactory level.
There have also been special editions of that show aired throughout the week.

The SABC has also had special election coverage on their SABC News channel.
They have the Democracy20 program that airs right in the middle of their flagship 6pm newscast from 6:30pm to 7pm (simulcast on free-to-air channel SABC3) that looks at how the country has developed since 1994.
They have an Election Round Up program daily at 10 pm that looks at the days to election news (this program replaces reruns of news bulletins that ran earlier in the evening on other SABC channels).

They have also had election debates that airs at 6pm on Sunday (simulcast on SABC1 during the slot held by well done news show Sunday World).

With so many options you spoilt for choice when it comes to election programming and deciding wh to vote for. I must say I am impressed by the heavyweights that have came out to appear on these programs, often multiple times and on channels that do not have high viewerships.