There is enough garbage on telly these days without having to introduce more channels into the mix. Do we really need more reality cooking shows, lame sitcoms about 20-somethings living in apartments they could in no ways afford and ‘documentaries’ about a family of meerkats?

It’s a no to all three from me, but apparently what we do need is a new government TV news channel. President Jacob Zuma’s administration has a new propaganda plan (the words used by the Mail&Guardian before you lose it with us) and they also intend to take a leaf out of the DA’s book when it comes to dealing with newspapers that are considered hostile:

The state’s plan includes slashing government advertising to media perceived as anti-government, pushing the SABC to tell more government news and channel more advertising to state media entities.

These are among the proposals of a national communications task team (NCTT) established last year by Communications Minister Faith Muthambi…

The NCTT notes in its report, dated July 10 and leaked to the M&G this week, “the ANC government might take … courage from what the DA has done in the Western Cape, where they decided to cut ties with the Cape Times for they deemed it was not adding value to their communication strategies”.

Of course worse than not subscribing to a newspaper and reducing their circulation is hitting their bottom-line hard by reducing ad spend, something the NCTT has also recommended to Cabinet:

The government spends about R1-billion on advertising in mainstream media, according to a task team member. This includes provincial and local government…

The M&G was told that this means “there must be a habit of using the muscle of government to support information dissemination projects. If we are going to spend R1-million on the M&G we should encourage the newspaper to cover stories at their own editorial initiative that educate the public.”

Far more worrying is how some big names like the Sunday Times, M&G and City Press are suffering through ad revenue loss due to government being unhappy with the way that the ANC is represented.

Let’s turn our attention to that TV channel then, what can we look forward to?

To speedily deliver messages to citizens, the task team suggested that the state owns a TV channel and explores a mobile TV channel. The team also suggests that “each province gets its own channel”…

The task team wants Brand SA to “form partnerships with entities such as SABC and should not have to pay for airtime to promote programmes of national importance”…

The task team also expects the SABC to “have a more aggressive strategy” to communicate government policy.

I guess that means we should pay special attention to where we are getting our news from and who might be pulling some strings behind the scenes.

May I make one recommendation – perhaps a show where someone schools government officials on how to read out particularly large numbers would go down well, only a minor thing but a step in the right direction.

[source:mg]