I DON’T know if you have noticed it, but the Africa News Network (ANN7) is awful. It is not comically bad, like the Spanish telemundos that DStv recently started showing. It is just unspeakably, and unwatchably awful.
When I first watched the channel, I found myself asking who the anchors and presenters were. South Africa has a small and insular news media industry, and new newsrooms and broadcast studios rarely feature new talent that hasn’t been anywhere else before.
The launch of PowerFM proved as much — the line-up features familiar voices such as Azania Mosaka, Pabi Moloi and Siki Mgabadeli. The new station forced a rejig of line-ups all over the place as DJs and presenters moved about, but few stations introduced new faces. Certainly not an entire line-up of completely unknown people.
That should have been a clue for ANN7. It isn’t even like they got anchors from other countries. Many of them are former models. Fox News in the US goes for a similar vibe with its bombshell presenters, but Roger Ailes had the forethought to hire the experienced and trained Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum and Gretchen Carlson. They can do television. Those hired by ANN7 mostly can’t.
Not content with unready presenters, ANN7 features bad production. It is difficult to watch the blooper reels without feeling sorry for the presenters who are often caught out by faulty equipment, or get caught muttering on air when not in the shot.
The most embarrassing errors have to be the countless spelling mistakes made on banners. Those are simply inexcusable.
However, any pity vanishes when we are confronted, as if there’s something wrong with pointing out that ANN7 is a train smash.
Journalists have been having fun at ANN’s expense on social media — we wouldn’t be journalists if we weren’t — and it seems to have cheesed some people off.
One of the anchors took to Facebook to complain that ANN was being mocked for taking a chance on youth (she managed to mention journalism and entertainment in one breath, which is a good sign) — this was after an Indian company sent out copyright infringement notices to Youtube to have the blooper films taken down.
The funniest accusation is that we are inspired by professional jealousy and bias against anyone who isn’t "liberal media".
There’s a certain Schadenfreude in seeing a rival fail, obviously. But you ought to be very hard-pressed to find a journalist who doesn’t want a greater plurality of voices in the media space. It is true that the big Sunday papers tend to run in a pack on political stories, and broadcasters like eNCA tend to fall within a similar slant. A homogenous media in such a country is good for nobody. However, almost all who claim media bias always omit to mention one of the biggest players in the industry: the SABC. With its range of television and radio stations, it gets to broadcast a different perspective, one that isn’t as critical to its only shareholder (the government) as private-owned media.
The SABC is a player in the media space too. It cannot be accused of carrying the agenda of the liberal media. It has a voice too. And it is proof that you don’t have to be entirely crap to be different, even if the public broadcaster’s own 24-hour channel on DStv is poor.
It would have been nice for the ANN7 channel to be done properly. It would have been interesting to see a different perspective from a commercial entity. But I can’t it anymore. It’s exhausting. One is always clenched, waiting for the next cringeworthy disaster. I also do not like to have my intelligence insulted by the people who put out such a shoddy production and expect us to support it just because it is different.
ANN7 must get the basics right first.
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