Maybe next time?

I missed Thabo Mbeki’s farewell speech on Sunday night and was desperate the next morning to catch a glimpse of his apparently wet eyes bidding goodbye to a nation. I rush over to the SABC website hoping to find an uploaded video of the evening’s drama.

I don’t find anything.

Instead, I come across videos pertaining to Hansie Cronje’s King Commission (three full days worth of footage), the opening ceremony and Madiba’s closing speech at the AIDS Conference in Durban some eight years ago, and the bid for the 2006 World Cup (which we never got). The closest to Thabo Mbeki were two State of the Nation addresses in 2001 and 2004.

Odd I thought, surely President Mbeki addressed us every year?

I continued my search around the corporate and news site once more and finally decided that for now, an audio byte or pod cast would suffice. But it seemed I had more chance locating Britney on 5FM than accessing our president’s speech. Not even an archived pod cast. So I decide to call the SABC and ask them directly (hoping of course that I am not put through to call centre in Bihar, India).

After a few calls, I get through to the right department and I am told that this video would not be uploaded. If I really wanted to watch it, I could buy the DVD for R320 excluding postage.

I gasp out loud, “Really? That much?”

The bloke on the other end doesn’t respond. I doubt he even twitched.

So I continued, “Okay, fine. Is there no other way I can access this except buying the DVD – I mean — how about a transcript or something?”

“You can try the government website”, he responds.

Funny, I thought. From what I knew about the management of the SABC in recent years, I could’ve sworn that the SABC was indeed a government department.

But with no need to enter into this devious terrain, I thank him and look for the transcript instead. But transcripts are so boring. And I refuse to believe that this important speech had only made it to shelf No.175a in the SABC archives.

This is the 21st century dammit! I want to see this video. For free.

I succumb to the inevitable, turning to the God of all such small things: Google. After a few strange results I end up on the BBC website and France24 TV. Both news websites offer comprehensive video coverage on Mbeki’s resignation with the BBC hosting the full version of the speech and France24 TV hosting an insightful report with snippets from the speech.

In this day and age with free video uploads and pod casts, live streaming and instant cappuccinos – is it not simply pathetic that I have to access traces of this video from foreign news agencies instead of our very own public broadcaster?

We always knew the SABC is useless, even compromised, as a public broadcaster. But what reasons could they possibly have for not hosting each and every important speech or crucial public service announcement on their website? Is it not part of our democratic right to be able to access these at least as lower resolution video (if they are concerned about copyright and all that poppycock) on their websites – or do we have to pay for a TV licence for that too?

The SABC’s tagline is Broadcasting for total citizen empowerment. It is plastered all over their website. I say maybe next time.