BROADCASTING FOR THE PUBLIC

A campaign to democratise broadcasting in Swaziland is gathering ground.

Media freedom advocates are taking encouragement from six draft government bills that were published in 2007. Two of these bills deal directly with broadcasting in the kingdom. A move away from the present state-controlled system to one of public service broadcasting is central to the debate and one of the government draft bills, the Swaziland Broadcasting Bill, specifically outlines a version of public service broadcasting in the Swazi context.

Many people who are involved in the debate on the future of broadcasting in Swaziland are confusing the two terms ‘public broadcasting service’ and ‘public service broadcasting’. A ‘public broadcasting service’ is a service that is broadcast to the public. This can include radio and television that is state-controlled, commercial broadcasting, church broadcasting, national stations, local stations and community stations. It is a generic term and includes all forms of broadcasting that reaches an audience. Even very small stations such as the stations that broadcast exclusively to one chain of shops, which play music and commercials advising customers of the bargains of the day (such as you hear in some supermarkets) could be called a public broadcasting service.

The radio and television stations broadcast from Swaziland, although mostly state-controlled are public broadcasting services.

‘Public service broadcasting’ is a very particular kind of broadcasting and most definitely not broadcast from Swaziland. Public service broadcasting aims to inform, educate and entertain in a way in which the commercial or state sector left unregulated would not do. Generally, it is understood that public service broadcasters air a wide range of programmes in a variety of tastes and interests. They speak to everyone as a citizen and everyone has an opportunity to access the airways and participate in public life. The World Radio and Television Council put it well when it said that public service broadcasting stations help people to develop knowledge, broaden horizons and enable people to better understand themselves by better understanding the world and others.

Public service broadcasting in providing access to a wide range of information and ideas serves as an instrument of popular empowerment through its programming. This empowerment goes against the grain in Swaziland, which is a not a democracy. Currently, broadcasters in Swaziland serve the interests of the ruling elites and not those of the people. Broadcasting is state-controlled, that means no criticism of the staus quo is allowed on the airwaves in Swaziland. Any criticism of the ruling elite is seen as ‘non-Swazi’. The Prime Minister is editor in chief of the Swazi radio stations SBIS and can decide what goes on the air and what does not.

The Minister of Information and Public Service also takes a ‘hands-on’ role and believes he has the right to make day to day decisions that affect the broadcasting organisations. This was made explicit in 2003 by the then Minister of Information Abednego Ntshangase who announced a censorship policy for state media, saying that, ‘the national television and radio stations are not going to cover anything that has a negative bearing on government’.

Public service broadcasting cannot exist alongside state control. Public service broadcasting must keep a distance from vested interests (in the case of Swaziland that’s the ruling elite). Radio and television stations need to be left alone to make their own decisions regarding business and the content of their channels. If state money is to be used to finance any public service broadcasting services there needs to be a clear understanding (preferably in law) that the state can only contribute the money and it has no right to interfere in the broadcasting stations.

Recently, the present Ministry of Information and Public Service has publicly embraced public service broadcasting as the way forward for Swaziland. In a public speech in June 2007 Martin Dlamini, Director, Information and Media Development, supported the concept of PSB, describing it as ‘a public policy instrument that gives concrete expression to the fundamental right to freedom of expression’. He went on to quote Swaziland’s National Information and Media Policy which says that Swaziland’s state-controlled television and radio stations will be transformed into full public service broadcasters, and their public service mandate will also be monitored by a regulator.

These are encouraging words but the lack of commitment that SBIS radio has to the public service broadcasting project can be seen in its own (still current) mission statement that by the year 2000 the SBIS shall be a fully fledged Public Service Broadcaster, a vehicle for providing comprehensive information for development and social welfare to all sectors of the Swazi society.

Today, seven years after the passing of the mission statement deadline, SBIS has not taken a single step toward becoming a public service broadcaster. Indeed, in 2003, three years after the deadline, the then Minister of Information and Public Information re-affirmed the censorship control the government would have over the radio station.

In truth, despite a new constitution coming into force in February 2006, Swaziland is a closed society. There is limited freedom of association, freedom of expression or freedom of action. Cultural norms restrict what people can say and how they behave and cultural elites can decide what is permissible or what is ‘un-Swazi’ and therefore impermissible.

Public service broadcasting is incompatible with the above because it allows access to all, caters for minority tastes and views (and more importantly opinions) and encourages questioning and democracy.

There will need to be changes in society before there can be public service broadcasting and the most obvious change that is needed is democracy. People who cannot understand the principles of democratic life cannot fully appreciate how public service broadcasting differs from a public broadcasting service.

Swaziland may not be ready for public service broadcasting but an important step towards achieving it would be to relax the present government control over broadcasting and encourage an openness among broadcasters so that a new professional culture emerges (this will take time). These new media professionals (and other like minded people) could then advocate for democracy within Swaziland because media practitioners and audiences will understand what their responsibilities are within a democracy. At present proponents of public service broadcasting in Swaziland are asking for a broadcasting model that supports democracy (something that Swaziland does not have)