PICTURE: RUSSELL ROBERTS South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng has issued an instruction that SABC news is to cut its coverage of service delivery protests.The statement issued by the public broadcaster explaining the decision said that, "continuing to promote them (service delivery protests) might encourage other communities to do the same".Motsoeneng himself is quoted in the statement as saying, "As a public broadcaster we have a mandate to educate the citizens, and therefore we have taken this bold decision to show that violent protests are not necessary."The decision is, of course, undiluted censorship. Done properly, the news does not "promote" violence, it reports on it; unless that was a slip of the tongue on Motsoeneng’s behalf. Likewise, people are best "educated" by having access to the truth. Ignorance breeds many things; enough of it and you can include violence. And so it is a move as counterproductive as it is ostensibl...
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