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Survival on Cloud-Ostrich Island
Robert Kirby
August 01, 2005

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=246637&area=/columnist__robert_kirby/

Sources who, quite naturally, refuse to be named, have revealed that the SABC is currently running pilot programmes for a new and exciting series in the popular Survival format.

The basic idea of the programme is to show how a typical SABC television news programme is conceived and assembled. To this end, an easy-to-digest and entertaining metaphor is used.

On a barren atoll called Cloud-Ostrich Island, a group of vaguely professional journalists is marooned. The journalists’ only formal news source is something called the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS). When the flow from the GCIS slackens, the reporters look for further news by means of an old island tradition where they all stick their heads into small holes on the beach.

Each episode represents one day, beginning with a five minute session during which the boss of the Island, Lord Hau-Hau, hands out the day’s "targets". These targets are later assembled to form the evening television news broadcast. Completing targets satisfactorily earns points for the journalists. Certain targets earn higher points than others. Those making the final list of the day get broadcast the same evening.

In fulfilling targets, journalists on Cloud-Ostrich Island are allowed to bid for access to the services of a set of carefully chosen "roving target reporters". These reporters can be dispatched to add authenticity and background colour to any instruction for news coverage that has come from the GCIS.

Competition is tough. The targets that earn the highest points are the so-called "Thabos". These are news stories and references which depict the South African president as some sort of supreme being, a benign, consummate provisioner of wisdom and morality. An example of a triumphant "Thabo" was broadcast last Saturday as a opener to the 7pm SABC 3 bulletin. It had the added benefit of being read in unctuous babble by Cloud-Ostrich Island’s digitally energised automaton, Mahendra Ragunath. Here it is, in all its grovelling glory.

"There’s no place to hide for lazy, corrupt officials failing to deliver on the most basic of services. The special presidential imbizos will be after you. For the second weekend running, President Thabo Mbeki and his team have been out checking on delivery. This time they were in mThata."

This was followed by five minutes of toe-curling sycophancy delivered by "specialist" roving target reporter, Miranda Strydom.

Last Saturday’s target was a runaway winner. Miranda and all the reporters involved scored maximum points. Then, when all the bowing and scraping at mThata was over, it was the turn for the story which was number one on all major news services around the world: the terror bombings in Egypt that had cost in excess of 80 lives.

Here so-called "bonus suction points" were scored by another un-named journalist. With one stroke of his tongue he attached a "Secondary Thabo Quick-Lick". The Egyptian bombing story was introduced: "President Mbeki had expressed his deep concern, horror and sympathies to the victims of the tragic bombings in Egypt."

As you can see, on Cloud-Ostrich Island bum-fondling has been elevated to an art form. Such is the ethical insufficiency on the island, if ever any journalists show the slightest sign of independent thinking, they get thrown to the sharks. Senior or junior makes no difference. Few people of principle or quality manage to stay in the game for any length of time. Cloud-Ostrich Island sheds staff like a coconut tree in a gale drops its load. Things are so picky nowadays, even Jimi Matthews got tossed off the cliff.

Apart from "Thabos" many other points can be accumulated by Cloud-Ostrich Island journalists. Anything which praises or publicises any achievement of the African National Congress, however insignificant or dubious, gets priority consideration. Any news item which shows the ANC in the process of "delivery" scores even better, as does any item which asserts yet again how dedicated is the ANC’s fight against corruption and fraud. The mThata item above is a perfect example of how a "delivery" and a "Thabo" can be combined to stunning effect.

Anything that dumps on opposition to the ANC is a solid points scorer. Shrewd Cloud-Ostrich Island journalists know the value of dishing up some quick-fry fiction about turmoil in the ranks of the Inkatha Freedom Party. Bitchy defamation of the Democratic Alliance, most especially of its leader, is a given. An underhand "Leon" is worth lank points.

A subtle way of earning "commission" is in thinking up excuses for not running targets that might show up the higher echelons of the South African government in anything but glorious light. Hence, in these last few weeks, when the "Oilgate" scandal has revealed a nest of high-level corruption as grimy as anything Mr Shaik ever dreamed of, Cloud-Ostrich Island television news has ignored the story -- as it has emerging details of a R900-million raid on the Land Bank alleged to have been made by a company of which the secretary general of the ANC is a shareholder.

Currently, SABC viewers are only being shown the results of each day’s survival tasks on Cloud-Ostrich Island. When they get to visit the island, itself, is still undecided.

*Robert Kirby is a columnist with the Mail & Guardian (SA)

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