SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa's public broadcaster has announced an official inquiry into allegations that its news department has blacklisted prominent government critics from the airwaves.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said it would seek to establish whether the commentators in question had been "arbitrarily banned" following reports that the newsroom had fallen into the hands of government stooges.
Among those said to have been blacklisted are William Gumede, author of a bestselling unofficial biography of President Thabo Mbeki, and two columnists on Business Day, a newspaper recently criticised by Mr Mbeki for its supposed negative coverage of government initiatives.
It is also emerged that during last year's Zimbabwean elections producers were told not to use commentators Elinor Sisulu and the president's brother Moeletsi Mbeki, although the latter has since spoken on other topics.
Both analysts are critics of the president's policy of "quiet diplomacy" on Zimbabwe, while the other commentators have provided insight on the African National Congress's (ANC) bitter internal feud between Mr Mbeki - representing the party's conservative wing - and former deputy president Jacob Zuma, a figurehead for the left.
The SABC's independence has already been called into question with its decision to scrap a television documentary this month that was critical of the president.
The state broadcaster last year came under scrutiny for failing to report that deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had been booed off a stage shortly after taking up her new job.
SABC's head of news, Snuki Zikalala, is an ANC member and former government spokesman. Analysts believe he now may be facing a showdown with SABC chief executive Dali Mpofu, who promised to investigate fully the blacklisting allegations.
Initial claims from the company that no bans were in place had been contradicted by one of its own broadcasters, John Perlman, who told listeners to his radio show this week he had first-hand knowledge of restrictions on certain analysts.
Opposition party Democratic Alliance, which has frequently accused SABC of political bias, welcomed the inquiry into the affair, saying it looked forward to "resolute action".
The party's communications spokesman, Dene Smuts, rejected suggestions that the controls were necessary to foster greater unity in the state. "Censorship in the name of social cohesion is just censorship under a grand-sounding label highly reminiscent of old National Party rule," he said.
The ANC Youth League, which has become increasingly critical of Mr Mbeki since the president sacked Mr Zuma from office last year, has also rounded on the SABC for the alleged blacklisting.
The youth organisation claimed the broadcaster was "speedily drifting the country into the abyss of censorship only heard of under such regimes as those of Idi Amin".
A spokesman for SABC admitted that it had recently devised "policy guidelines on the use of commentators", saying this was because of problems identified in audience research.
"These problems did not relate to the commentators' views on the succession debate or any specific topic or person, but to occasions where it was clear that commentators were sometimes ill-informed, providing viewers and listeners with analysis based on facts that were either incorrect or out of date," he said.