Tag: archives

Multichoice, SABC deal raise hackles

A controversial five-year, R550 million deal between Multichoice and the SABC has drawn sharp criticism from some industry stakeholders

A R550 million deal between Multichoice and the SABC, which will hand over a large deal of control over the SABC’s news operations to the DStv owner, is being challenged by industry stakeholders.

Three groups – Caxton Publishers, Media Monitoring Africa and SOS: Support Public Broadcasting Coalition – have approached the Competition Tribunal saying that the deal is not in the public interest.

In a press statement by Media Monitoring Africa, it said that the deal entered into between the SABC and Multichoice, in which Multichoice acquired control over part of the SABC business, constitutes a mandatory notifiable merger.

Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) started in 1993 and is a non-profit organisation that aims to promote democracy and a culture where media and the powerful respect human rights and encourage a just and fair society.

“We are not aware of any attempt to notify the Competition Tribunal of such a merger. If the deal is proven to be a notifiable merger it will enable us to oppose the merger on the basis that it is not in the public interest for it to take place,” MMA said.

“When news of the deal broke in 2013, both MMA and SOS expressed deep concern as to the nature of the deal. We both believe it fundamentally works against the best and long term interests of the SABC and the people it serves.”

Media Monitoring Africa expressed three main concerns with the deal:

Handing over the SABC archive: The SABC has handed over power and control of its archives to Multichoice. The archives are an invaluable public asset, and giving control and access of the archive to a commercial player SABC has sold off the family jewels.

Encryption turnaround: The SABC effectively ceded its power to determine its policy on set-top box control to a commercial broadcasting entity that is also its competitor.

Best programming veto: The deal sets out terms for a future channel to be developed by the SABC, where Multichoice may veto some programmes and select only the best ones to be broadcast exclusively on the SABC-Multichoice platform. The deal therefore ensures the best future local programming is aired on DStv, and that citizens who do not subscribe to the Multichoice services will be denied viewing of the programmes.

A report by The Sunday Independent newspaper, titled “Diabolical and secret SABC TV deal exposed”, said that the Multichoice-SABC “Commercial and Master Channel Distribution Agreement” has been kept from public view under a confidentiality provision.

The report further stated that even the SABC board was kept in the dark regarding the deal which was signed in July 2013.

However, because it forms part of the Competition Tribunal case, and thanks to the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in the City of Cape Town versus Sanral case, it is now a public document.

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago told The Sunday Independent that the SABC would never allow its news operations to be influenced by another broadcaster.

Multichoice in turn said that it has not exerted any influence on SABC news. They added that they have many news channels on its DStv platform, and that performance requirements come standard with such agreements.

Source: mybraodband.co.za

Mandela has no birth certificate, say archivists

Valentine's Day letter from Mandela
Valentine’s Day letter from Mandela

By Christopher Torchia

Most of Nelson Mandela’s handwriting is neat, but it harbors a few mysteries. Archivists sometimes struggle to decipher words in the vast body of documents that Mandela penned, and he often jotted an acronym that nobody, not even the former South African president in later years, has been able to explain.

Now, some of the words that Mandela wrote, which help define the man who led the fight against white rule and became president after apartheid, are on display at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which on Monday unveiled a public facility.

Mandela, now 95 and critically ill, wrote prolifically during his storied career.

In jail, Mandela’s associates wrote some things in tiny script, reducing the amount of paper used so that it could be smuggled out of prison more easily. In his autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” Mandela notes his copy of the book manuscript was confiscated by authorities, but applauds fellow prisoners with “unique calligraphic skills” who helped get the original manuscript out of prison.

Mandela was a lawyer early in his career, and some letters to family from prison balance sadness with hope and optimism, with carefully chosen words.

“He doesn’t shoot from the hip,” said Razia Saleh, a senior archivist at the foundation.

Mandela, also known by his clan name Madiba, was released in 1990 after 27 years in apartheid prisons, and many of the notes he wrote since then include the initials KLM. Nobody at the foundation can figure out its meaning.

“Madiba hasn’t been able to tell us what it means,” Saleh said. “So that’s a mystery. Maybe somebody can solve it at some point.”

The former president’s orderly handwriting stems from his education in Christian mission schools, though it’s sometimes hard for archivists to make out letters such as “s” and “h” in Mandela missives.

“We’ve transcribed his desk calendars, and sometimes we battle to make out words,” Saleh said.

The display at the non-profit Nelson Mandela Foundation is open by appointment and includes a small piece of stone from the hut where Mandela was born in the rural village of Mvezo in Eastern Cape province. The hut was demolished a few years ago to make way for new construction.

“There isn’t much that survived from his early childhood. There’s no photograph. We don’t have a birth certificate,” said Saleh. The stone, she added, is “one of the few things that’s tangible, that links us to Madiba’s early life.”

The opening of the public facility coincides with the 20th anniversary of the approval of an interim constitution and an electoral bill that set the stage for South Africa’s first all-race elections in 1994.

Mandela now stays in a big house in a Johannesburg neighborhood near the center named after him, attended by doctors. President Jacob Zuma visited him on Monday, and the president’s office said Mandela remains in stable but critical condition.

The Sunday Independent, a South African newspaper, quoted Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, as saying he is unable to speak because of tubes that keep his lungs clear of fluid. Mandela has been in intensive medical care at his home since Sept. 1, when he was discharged after nearly three months in a hospital for a recurring lung infection. – AP