SABC Head of News disciplinary hearing postponed to Tuesday

The disciplinary hearing into the conduct of SABC News and Current Affairs Head Phathiswa Magopeni has been postponed to Tuesday when she is expected to testify.

Magopeni has been charged with misconduct, negligence and bringing the public broadcaster into disrepute. The matter relates to the airing of a Special Assignment episode on October 26 that the SABC had been interdicted from broadcasting.

Earlier, Magopeni applied to have the inquiry collapsed which was dismissed by the chairperson of the hearing Advocate Nazeer Cassim.

Head of Output News, Mlunghisi Shivamba, who was Editor of Free-to-Air TV News and Current Affairs at the time the episode aired, testified that the news department ensured it obliged to the court order by finding a replacement episode.

He says the onus to ensure the airing of the correct episode lied with final control under the technical division and not with News.

“And also to see that we have put on the FCC sheet corresponds with what is in the tape. So, for them to simply look into an FCC sheet and conclude it corresponds and press a button, it’s very reckless of them. Because they need to account as a platform that this FCC sheet is what has been fed or loaded in their system. They do not have a right to just take an FCC sheet and think it suffices to put something on air,” says Shivamba.

Special Assignment Executive Producer Busisiwe Ntuli says duplication of programme codes led to the airing of the interdicted episeode.

Ntuli was the first defence witness to be called at the disciplinary hearing. Ntuli says the error is systematic.

“From where I am sitting chairperson, in my honest opinion, it is definitely a systemic issue, it’s the gap in the system, throughout the value chain,” says Ntuli.

Disciplinary Hearing of SABC News Head Phathiswa Magopeni: