Special Hearings — Media Hearings — 1997-09-15

DON BRISCOE: Mr Chairman I would like to thank you for the opportunity of contributing to the important work of the Commission.  My background is in the media, television, film, photography, public relations, marketing and journalism.  My first article in a newspaper occurred when I was at the age of 12 and I have never stopped writing, and I have been making films throughout the world since the age of 20.  I was running my own public relations consultancy in Sandton City in the early 1970's and I was head-hunted by the SABC to join the Corporation to set up English language television in this country.  I was head of children's programmes, head of magazine programmes and then later head of documentaries.  Mr Chairman I think I can sum up those times, those years in a few words by saying it was the best of times and it was the worst of times.  I saw myself as the head of documentaries, my prime responsibility to produce programmes of the highest calibre, of world standard, and I feel that today I have tremendous admiration and pride in the 12 producers who worked with me in that department.  We produced more than 90 documentaries a year, a tremendous output and we will never see their quality again.  My responsibility was to actually show the viewers of South Africa the country as they have never seen it before.  We brought our programmes to fruition on a very broad spectrum, providing a very balanced output of programmes.  Certainly some of them were of a very sensitive nature, but I upheld the principles of documentary production by ensuring that we made programmes that were not only technically of the highest standard, but did their job in bringing the country to the viewers.    And I mentioned that it was also the most difficult of times, the most terrifying of times because we were very seldom as a department out of the media.  It was a time when television was feared by the government and also feared by the Corporation, the little bioscope in the corner.  And what was documentaries department going to do about that in showing the country to the nation.  And as an English language television service, documentary service, we were viewed with some suspicion by the hierarchy.  We always had the hierarchy in the SABC on hot bricks and for that I am delighted because we did our job as documentary producers.   It is remarkable to think now back more than 25 years that where we had scenes in a documentary of a white person shaking hands with a black person that had to be edited out of the programme.  We made a documentary for example of looking at the Afrikaans community in this country. We wanted a viewpoint from a black journalist.  We interviewed him outside the Voortrekker Monument. It was a superb interview.  That had to be removed.    The point I want to make Mr Chairman is that as a documentary department we made the programmes that we felt that needed to be made, but there was a rule within the Corporation that said that if I considered that some of the programmes were of a sensitive nature in content they had to be viewed by the head of television.  If he felt it had to be viewed by the director of television the programme went higher up the line and usually it meant that programmes were cut or edited, and in one case actually shelved.    My producer, Mr Adrian Herrings, who is now doing very well in Australia, produced a programme in our department on black education, it was explosive programme, an explosive programme and we wanted to have it broadcast because it actually threw light on all the evils in the system.  I condoned the programme for broadcast at my level, but because it was of a sensitive nature I had to take it up the line to the head of television.  Then it went from there to the director of television where it was actually aborted.  The view of the Corporation at that point was that the programme was unbalanced and therefore should not be screened, and that programme has never been screened.  There were many occasions like that which made our role as documentary producers extremely difficult.  But at the same time I would like to say that as a department we produced some of the finest hours of documentary this country has ever seen, and I do hope that those programmes are still in the Corporation's archives.

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much.  In other words you couldn't make, even though you were head of the English documentary department, you couldn't make the final decision and somebody - I mean who kept on telling you not to go ahead when you really yourself were prepared to do that?

DON BRISCOE: I established the concepts for the department in association with my producers, I drew parameters within which we would operate.  When I say parameters I mean conceptualising a documentary series which may look at our indigenous peoples of South Africa.  We produced a wonderful series with Dr Peter Bekker on our tribal customs of South Africa fulfilling one of my principles for the department of actually bringing the country to the people at home.  We did that admirably well, exceptionally well.  Where I personally felt a documentary programme was touching on sensitive issues of a political nature which I knew that the Corporation would be very concerned about I would then take that programme, I would condone it in terms of its technical content and so forth, I would then take that completed programme up the line to the head of television and I would say this programme I think is of a sensitive nature you need to see it before broadcast.  At that point very often certain cuts and edits would be demanded in the programme.    I remember very clearly a programme we made on Baragwanath Hospital by Mr Kevin Harris, also another gifted producer, which touched on life in Soweto, a wonderful programme, a one hour special, but in the beginning of the programme Mr Harris commented on the Black Consciousness Movement and I said an amber light was on.  I said the Corporation needs to see that programme before broadcast.  I condoned the programme for broadcast.    I took it up the line and the few minutes reference to the Black Consciousness Movement had to be cut out of the programme.  I gave that instruction to my producer.  My producer unfortunately, if I may so, deceived me by saying that he would do the edit, the edit was not made, the programme went on the air that night and while it was running I received a telephone call at my home from the big boss in television saying what the hell is going on.  That programme should not have been broadcast without that cut.  I had to rush back into the Corporation at night to watch this programme going on the air but it was too late.    The very next morning I was given an instruction by the head of television that Mr Harris was to be fired immediately.  I took my stand on that because I believe very strongly, I admire somebody who takes a stand on an issue, but here we had a case where I was personally deceived as head of department and I couldn't trust this producer anymore and so he was fired immediately.  But that sort of situation occurred within the documentary department and in the corridors of power which made life at times very, very difficult indeed.

DR BORAINE: What you are saying in effect is that you really had to watch your back because you yourself went along and asked for permission to - whereas if you had gone ahead perhaps you could have got away with it?