Special Hearings — Media Hearings — 1997-09-15

TAU MATAU: I could see them thinking that way, and as a formally established union now we had actually foreseen the necessity for us to couple our industrial action with a broader political objective because we did not foresee that we could win the type of industrial action we were embarking on and still survive under the same political climate.  So we sought to remove that political power at the same time.

MR NTSEBEZA: Indeed the Commission to which you made your submission, first the Tebbutt Commission as I understand it, I am not exactly sure whether I am right, was also wanting to look at the invasion of Bophutatswana by elements associated with the AWB, though you don't mention in your submission to how it affected you.  Is there a sense in which you, you as a union, were affected by the events surrounding the AWB invasion?

TAU MATAU: Not as a union, but a few of our members had scuffles with those forces that day, but as individuals, not as a union.

MR NTSEBEZA: Was it because the AWB had gone onto the premises of the Broadcasting Corporation or was it in conduct in the course of the invasion in Mmabatho?

TAU MATAU: Yes, the encounters were outside the Corporation but in the town itself.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now what's your general view about State control insofar as it could have created an environment for human rights abuses to take place?

TAU MATAU: State control, especially of a media institution, is the worst thing that could ever happen in any state, in my mind, as a journalist.  It stifles your creativity which is a necessary aspect of being a journalist.  And when the State intervenes in the way it was doing in Mmabatho it instils fear and people who are afraid can never be sufficiently productive, and at the same time it creates a frustration.  So you are pent up with emotions and one day you are going to burst and I believe this is exactly what happened to us. And that is why it is our thrust as a union to fight for a free media in this country and all over the world.

MR NTSEBEZA: Ja, now part of our mandate, and this is my last question, is to make recommendations, eventually to the State President and therefore to South African society because these will be tabled before Parliament, that should ensure that gross violations of human in whatever form should never take place again, and in the context of your submission and that of Mr Proctor and generally, in view of your remarks, what would you say, very cryptically, should be the nature of our recommendations to ensure that there is no recurrence of the sort of things that happened in BBP because of the reasons that you've stated?

TAU MATAU: My recommendation would be that only journalists and broadcasters, professional journalists and broadcasters be involved with the business of broadcasting in this country, first, particularly where it involves editorial content.  In a large corporation like the SABC or the BBC or the envisaged public broadcasting service, the new one that we are seeking to establish in this country, you need to engage professionals in certain key areas who are not necessarily broadcasters, that is fine, but editorial content and policy directives should be from broadcasters and journalists.  We would again recommend that the State lays off of broadcasting, especially in terms of funding because we believe very strongly that he who pays the piper calls the tune.  One way of getting rid of State interference is to rid the corporation of the need to rely on the State for funding.  So we would say a once-off grant from government that would enable the corporation thereafter to operate professionally and to generate a healthy income basis for it to be self-funding in future.  That would be the scenario we would love to create for a future healthy broadcasting scenario in the country.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Mr Matau.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Hlengiwe.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you Chairperson.  Mr Matau clearly, based on what you have said, the discussion of - the argument you have presented to us shows that as a union you have been concerned a lot about the independence of journalists, but I just wonder whether in your struggles you ever looked at gender issues.  The reason why I am raising that because in our record of human rights violations, looking at what happened during the Soweto riots and what we heard when we held women's hearings was that gender insensitivity and lack of gender awareness on the part of journalists somehow contributed to gender specific human rights violations because those were never raised at all, and what we now shows that the media played a major role, I mean indirectly, by not highlighting those.    My second question, if I might ask you Mr Proctor, is I will just like to get your view as to where - I mean is it possible, in your own view, for the media as an institution to be located in such a way that it's not manipulated by either the left or the right?    Because - I mean if you heard our Chairperson when he made his opening remarks he was talking about a free, courageous, vibrant press, and as long as - based on what you are saying and the programmes you tried to push like to say something about the Mandela release, getting Hugh Masekela, clearly that was an agenda pushing the left agenda so to say.  Looking at what you were striving for so  where  do you think or how do you think the media should be located?

CHAIRPERSON: Steve Matau have you had enough time to  think about gender specificity?

TAU MATAU: Yes Archbishop.  My union is obviously a media union and we are  in and out of the battlefield on a daily basis and some of  the battles we have fought are gender issues, in the workplace and we have successfully championed the causes of female workers.  We have, specifically, through our general secretary addressed a number of conferences, symposia and made  numerous submissions on the issue of gender, championing the cause of equality.

MS MKHIZE: Chairperson, if I might ask your indulgence.   I can understand in terms of job opportunities for people to make sure that women are  represented,  but I was just thinking,  wondering whether you have consciously looked at, maybe it's not part of this institution, but what I was concerned about is whether you have in your workers empowerment come  out with a strategy to embark on censoring whatever goes out to the public from a gender perspective?

TAU MATAU: I cannot say yes.   No, I don't think we've done that so far.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Proctor - these people here were disturbing me.