ANC to submit formal complaint against eNCA over alleged racism

African National Congress (ANC) members protested outside eNCA offices on Tuesday over the treatment of Members of Parliament by one of the organisation’s journalist.

The ANC says it will submit a formal complaint to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa and the Human Rights Commission regarding the conduct of eNCA reporter, Lindsay Dentlinger.

Dentlinger raised the ire of South Africans when she interviewed white MPs without their masks on while she asked their black counterparts to keep theirs on.

The ANC’s Jessie Duarte has asked eNCA to take Dentlinger to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for training.

The eNCA’s Norman Nenzhelele received the ANC’s memorandum at the company’s Hyde Park headquarters, in Johannesburg.

He said the company will be holding workshops with its staff members in a bid to avoid incidents like the mask debacle in the future.

Dentlinger has acknowledged the outrage and disrespect felt by some members of South African society.

She says it was an oversight on her part not to ask the Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder to wear a mask as he was her first interview subject after the Finance Minister’s budget speech.

ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe says, “Both Dentliger and eNCA have wronged our nation and undermined our collective efforts of building a nation on the values of equality and non-racialism.”

List of demands by ANC:

• eNCA must withdraw the offensive statement in which they defended Dentlinger
• eNCA to send an unconditional apology to all South Africans for the pain and hurt that Dentlinger and eNCA have caused
• eNCA to send its journalists and management to human rights training to learn the values of equality and non-racialism
• eNCA must publicly acknowledge its history of mistreating its black journalists, some of whom have been forced out by the racially intolerable conditions at eNCA.
• eNCA to issue an unambiguous commitment that it will no longer tolerate racism within its ranks and to do something practical that will demonstrate genuine remorse on its part.
• The leadership and journalists of eNCA to engage in a process of thorough soul-searching and to confront their own racism and racial prejudice

Gauteng ANC stages a protest at the eNCA headquarters over racism allegations: