The NBC director general position is one of the top jobs any senior journalist could aspire to and the government’s preference for people outside of the profession needs to be rectified.
One of the requirements for NamPower’s managing director position is a master’s degree in engineering, which is tied to the institution’s core mandate and vision.
It is not a coincidence that the individual entrusted with this responsibility should have extensive understanding and expertise in electricity and/or engineering. The same goes with running a financial institution. To rise to the pinnacle, the individual must be well versed in, but not limited to accounting, finance, economics and numeracy or actuarial sciences.
Because of its reach, NBC is in a unique position to build understanding of democracy, public participation, and holding power to account.
Add to that, the decision by private media to abandon rural Namibia and robust journalism for their advertisers’ preference and Windhoek-based content leaves NBC, Namibia Press Agency and New Era to pick up the slack with news, views and peculiar stories from everywhere.
JOURNALISM
An experienced journalist easily understands why it is important to have a presence in underserved areas like Hardap and Kunene while a business executive asks how we are paying for it all and what the return on investment is. But a good NBC editor-in-chief both understands the importance of the institution’s mandate and works ethically to cover neglected areas, produce useful content and remain within budget.
Most DGs have failed, both because of the shareholder’s haphazard approach to funding the institution, which makes planning and stability difficult, but also because of a lack of appropriate skills among those appointed.
NBC DGs traditionally come to the job with strong political ties and purported corporate skills, but deep newsroom experience was always a secondary consideration.
This has caused a deterioration of the quality and depth of news content, while the corporation’s finances may never have been more deplorable. Despite its critical importance nationally, not many left the DG job with their dignity intact. It almost always ends under acrimonious circumstances.
A selection process that is fair and free from political interference should only consider the most appropriate candidate as the next NBC DG. One would hope meritocracy, over cadre deployment, will emerge and that an experienced professional who would stand up against rampant interference, political, economic or otherwise, should be appointed.
PERFECT CANDIDATE
On paper, the current DG, Stanley Similo, was thought to be the perfect candidate: he was a journeyman executive specialising in personnel management who also spent years working as a cameraman at the NBC.
But he did not live up to his billing.
The corporation’s subsidy this year is almost half a billion dollars, while income streams like TV license fees are drying up if the outdated available books are to be believed.
Similo’s reign, that’s ending, resulted in a watered-down newsroom: the organisation’s core business.
His NBC allowed the newsroom to be systemically weakened by overlooking the best in the market and opting for cheaper solutions.
As NBC fails to pick the cream of the crop, experienced print journalists have now also abandoned the well-trodden path to ‘graduate’ into broadcasting for PR jobs, and onscreen talent are leaving too.
With the aftermath of the 2021 month-long strike still rumbling on, NBC as a potential employer has long lost its lustre.
The result: B- or C-rate TV and journalism, where both presenter and ‘expert’ guest read from phone screens on TV ‘talk’ shows and most of the news stories were supposed to be just a Facebook post.
JUNIORISATION
The lack of depth and quality in NBC news and current affairs content is a direct result of the general ‘juniorisation’ of newsrooms all over the world.
But I am convinced the corporation’s limited newsroom talent has to do with trying to “sweat the resource” with tiny starter pack salaries, as opposed to employing experienced journalists who would expect to be paid properly.
Often, those experienced journalists ask pesky questions about in-house shenanigans that management would rather not have in the public eye.
To seemingly make up for compelling and innovative story ideas, NBC has instead turned the camera on themself.
NBC junior staff are now interviewing each other throughout the day about events without adding much value to any of their viewers’ lives.
Visibility over journalistic rigour cannot be NBC’s approach while dealing with an increasingly educated and fickle audience with access to a vast selection of quality content.
There’s also an incestuousness at NBC; overly relying on “our own” over outside talent and years of favouritism and employing family led to aimless recycling of staff between departments without being able to improve quality of content.
DISREPUTE
But why is an experienced journalist essential for NBC?
A real journalist would not present a paid-for programme as news and, when the media ombudsman asked to correct it, would not, instead, run to the courts and still lose.
Real journalists do not bring journalism into disrepute to escape censure by Parliament.
Similo’s successor will have to untangle the corporation from a personnel management quagmire the human resources expert had bungled them into.
Massive unresolved issues with medical aid, unpaid taxes, an HR minefield because of the total cost to the company, post-strike, and dwindling income await NBC’s next DG.
The size of the corporation will have to shrink dramatically, commensurate with its market share and ability to not just function but compete in a crowded market, with more competitors on the way.
Money is key in media management, and loss of income from steady sources, like TV license fees, should raise alarm unless you do not care about being able to afford quality content or your bosses are unable or unwilling to hold you to account.
If not producing annual reports and getting repeated rotten audit findings got you only praise and worship, would you really care about even the basics of financial management?
Many people watch NBC, as they cannot afford DsTV, but many cannot stand the clumsy programmes and never-ending, poorly edited, boring fillers they are being assaulted with daily.
In the end, NBC’s traditional platforms’ standing and popularity waned in the last decade, but the institution will dispute this without providing audited viewership figures.
EDITORIAL INDEPENDENCE
Like any editor, the NBC DG must have a backbone and stand for editorial freedom, freedom of expression and the plurality of voices. In fact, the new DG should reintroduce editorial freedom to NBC’s newsroom and wean it off its political influencers.
DGs have in the past allowed unfettered bullying of the newsroom by politicians and their lackeys, and the results continue to show.
Ethics die in the quiet dark corners between NBC’s newsroom and its studios.
NBC should serve all citizens equally, irrespective of their social status, race, gender or creed.
Standing up for journalists and publishing critical content against the so-called hand that feeds you is a duty the ‘editor-in-chief’ must navigate with the preservation of editorial independence and the public interest at the centre of their thoughts.
So, standing up to politicians is a necessary part of the job.
But you need to have a strong grounding in journalism if you want to stand up to your political overlords.
It is also an open secret that the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) exerts pressure as they decide on NBC’s rather sizable budget allocation and whether the sitting DG will get a new lucrative five-year contract. And with NBC always bragging about N$100 million they make on their own, the new DG will have to navigate this relationship well so he’s not surprised by a 60% cut in your budget allocation, as Similo found out in 2021.
Keeping politicians satisfied is easy if you have no ethics, morals or professional standing, but it’s the newsroom’s credibility that suffers if you cave.
As DG you will receive an offer from government bigwigs to employ their unqualified cousins, without the option to refuse.
NBC, therefore, needs a journalist in the hot seat who understands that only professional, quality content would make NBC as great as the institution’s management has told itself it is.
