South Africa Later: Role for TV News

“The revolution,” wrote songwriter Gil Scott-Heron, “will not be televised.” But that was before CNN and 24-hour news and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lady Liberty in Tian An Men Square and correspondents schlepping satellite dishes through the Arabian desert. In fact, the revolution has made for some pretty dramatic TV.

Scott-Heron wrote another song. “Have you heard,” the lyrics ask, “about Johannesburg?” That song was written before a lot of people had seen the graphic television pictures of the brutal repression of South Africa’s apartheid regime. It was these pictures that helped fuel the movement for economic sanctions and put pressure on Pretoria to reform.

The South African government saw the power of television as well--and in 1986 it put in place a set of Draconian media restrictions that led to the arrest and even expulsion of journalists from that country. Turn off the coverage, the government hoped, and the revolution would go away. And as a Canadian government study reported, the censorship largely succeeded in removing the apartheid story from the evening news. Without the pictures, the story went away.

Some argued that the U.S. networks caved in to the South Africans--failing to adequately challenge the government censors. Former President Carter called the networks “cowardly.” Jesse Jackson raised questions about the coverage and what he called the racial equation. “If 4 million blacks were holding down 20 million whites under the gun,” he said, “the media’s response would be different.”

It was to fill the void in coverage that the television newsmagazine “South Africa Now” was created in 1988 by Danny Schechter, then a producer at ABC News. The program was staffed with volunteers and other network producers who felt the apartheid story could and should be told.

And week after week for the next three years, “South Africa Now” focused on apartheid and its impact on the people of Southern Africa, broadcasting material that wouldn’t have been seen otherwise--on PBS stations across the country and around the world. The nonprofit program is now off the air (its final telecast was April 24), a casualty of lack of funding (Calendar, April 24).

Three years is a pretty good run for any television program, but the unique experiment that has been this shoestring budget show (the annual budget of “South Africa Now” was about the budget of one hour of a network program like “20/20” or “60 Minutes”) should not be allowed to disappear without examining the serious issues that it has raised about the role of television in world events. And the timing of the program’s demise should be addressed as well.

Since Nelson Mandela’s release from prison last year, the networks have been planning to close or reduce the staff of their bureaus in Johannesburg (the only permanent network bureaus on the entire African continent).

As South Africa’s political dynamic moves from one of repression to the prospect of negotiation and reform, the TV cameras are leaving. It is unlikely that television viewers will receive more than sporadic information about the historic transition to black majority rule.

“South Africa Now” was able to provide unique coverage because week after week there was a focus on one issue, providing analysis, background and context to get beneath the story’s surface.

While the program is over, the story is not--in South Africa and elsewhere. The producers of “South Africa Now” are currently seeking funding for a new program, “Rights and Wrongs,” which focuses on human rights issues around the world. And what’s become of China? Where do we turn for information on what a united Germany will mean to the world? Would a program focusing on the Middle East help provide a context for recent events? Or even anticipate them? Where are the cameras focused on our inner cities? Or the national debt?

“South Africa Now” was a unique experiment in television and it would be a great shame not to learn from it. The revolution is being televised, but it’s often what happens before and after that’s most important--the real-life day to day process of change.

If we make the effort to truly understand what’s happening in South Africa now, then maybe we can become a more educated and positive force in South Africa later.