Special Hearings — Media Hearings — 1997-09-15

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chair.  Now is it fair to say, in line with your thinking that there can never be complete freedom of the media, the media coverage, that when once you were given to understand the threat that a section of South African society was subjected to from outside you yourself took a conscious position to support the view of the generals?

DON BRISCOE: Mr Chairman I am actually in love with the television and film medium, I am a film maker and I choose to be part of the Corporation. If I am not happy about working in television and working in mainline television, and as I said earlier it was the best time to be in television, at the start up of this magic box, it was a wonderful time to be in television.  It was the only time to be in television.  Those other factors never entered my head for a moment.  We were out to make programmes to the very best of our capability and I believe that we produced world class programmes in their own right.  So those sort of political factors did not enter my mind at all.  I am not a political animal.

MR NTSEBEZA: Is it so that even if one accepts that, and I accept it for the moment for purposes of being fair to you, you were conscious that the programmes that you were producing were one-sided projecting the viewpoint of the South African regime's military establishment and carrying on and actually carrying across to the South Africa public that they are fighting a faceless threat in the form of a Communist threat, a terrorist threat without your programmes actually revealing that the men and women who were being deployed on our borders were actually deployed to fight not foreigners but nationalists, men and women who were born and bred in this country in the war of liberation.  Well you nod, it is not going into the record.

DON BRISCOE: Well once again I must say that those factors did not occur to me at all.  But it's quite clear that any government, any government of the day under threat of whatever sort, internally or externally, will do all it can to stay in power, and I put that to you to any country in the world.  So therefore, obviously, television with its powerful message of being able to influence the minds of people, certainly suggestions were made within the Corporation that certain programmes should be made.

MR NTSEBEZA: Just one last question.  Just to test that.  You know in some of our investigations we have tried to find out to what extent the war in protection of South Africa and South African citizens was carried on by the SADF and there has been controversies about some of the operations like for instance the Kasina operation and there have been claims and counter-claims.  Some of the people who were involved there have told me in the course of my investigations that even though they were told that they were attacking a Swapo military camp who they found there were pregnant women, children, and they just butchered them.    Now as head of television news did you bring across that facet, that aspect of the might of the South African Defence Force, that they were indiscriminate in their butchering of those whom they perceived as the enemies of the State, whether they were pregnant women, children, to the extent that the word had gone across that in that particular camp we are dealing with terrorists who should be dealt with and be exterminated wherever they could be found, that they kill them without taking into account that they could have captured them?  Now I hear you love making documentaries and all that, was that aspect shown to the South African public as well?

DON BRISCOE: No certainly not, and as I said before my department was only responsible for making those two programmes.  But without a doubt there was insurrection, there was war, war threats, war being taken place in Southern Africa and I don't think anybody present here today will say war is a pleasant thing, it's terrible.  I come to mind now, bring to mind the St James Church massacre which was appalling, absolutely appalling, war is terrible, war is dreadful, and any government I think facing a sort of threat of annihilation would do its utmost to stay in power.  That to me is just realism.

MR NTSEBEZA: The only difference with St James massacre of course is that it has been aired liberally and there was no attempt to hide the ugly face of that sort of incident from the people of South Africa so that the people must make their own judgements.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Hlengiwe I will allow you one question Madam, and this has got nothing to do with gender.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you Chairperson for having insight.  I will just ask two questions but related.  Just for the sake of clarifying what you have said I just want in your own words to tell us what did you hope to achieve by making a conscious decision to join SABC especially at the time when you did in 1974?    And a related question really is just that you seem to argue that there was no political agenda in what you were doing but the examples you make of all the work which you took up for censorship is like you did a good job.  In most instances whenever you wanted to check that had to be altered so I just want your view in that.

DON BRISCOE: Well to answer the first question, being a film maker myself I had always had film making and television in my belly as it were, so when television was about to be launched in South Africa I was quite sure that I was going to be in line to join television and so I joined the Corporation in 1974 and closed down my PR consultancy in Sandton City because I wanted to be part of the television medium.  There was no ulterior motive whatsoever, I just loved to be part of television and loved making films.  So it was an opportunity that I grasped with both hands.  Your second question please?

MS MKHIZE: Ja the second question really relates to what you have said that, exactly what you are saying that there was no political agenda.  But earlier on you had referred to quite a number of things which you said you had to take up so that it could be checked as to its appropriateness and in most instances whatever you took up to your seniors was altered in one or another, so it's like you were a gatekeeper of what is politically appropriate and you were doing a good job because whatever you were suspicious of was not acceptable.  So that's the ambiguity which I hope you can clarify for us as to what exactly are you communicating, no political agenda but in real practice it's like there was an active political screening process going on in your operations.

DON BRISCOE: Mr Chairman the Corporation obviously had codes of conduct, it had certain regulations and so on for governing television and the sort of subject matter that was sensitive and which had to be debated higher up the line.  So as the head of department I was aware of that.  But it's not only political matter that was sensitive. We produced a documentary on one particular occasion on wildlife and pets and animals and there was a scene in it in which we showed dead animals being put into an incinerator.  I actually demanded a cut of that scene from the producer because that was an insensitive scene to put on television.  So there were other aspects, not only political.    My particular role as head of the department was to ensure that there was maximum technical quality in terms of content and production.  So I personally as a head of department I did not come into television with a hidden agenda and I've never had a hidden agenda.  But certainly within the Corporation there were certain rules and customs and regulations that had to be followed.