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SABC confirms Perlman exit
30/01/2007 12:07 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The SABC on Tuesday confirmed the resignation of veteran journalist John Perlman, but would not provide details or reasons.
"All I know is, yes he has offered his resignation, but we as the SABC are not commenting as yet," said the public broadcaster's spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago.
Perlman's resignation came late Monday afternoon, he told Sapa.
Perlman told the Mail & Guardian Online on Tuesday morning that he would be ready to speak to the media "in two days".
"I need to think," he said.
Business Day reported Perlman's resignation on Tuesday, saying it came shortly after the news that Nikiwe Bikitsha, his co-presenter on SAfm's Morning Live, was leaving the public broadcaster.
Perlman's resignation was related to the controversy over the blacklisting of certain commentators from being interviewed on the SABC, the paper said.
Perlman confronted Kganyago on air, and said that he, Perlman, knew there was a blacklist, something Kganyago had denied.
The SABC's chief executive, Dali Mpofu, ordered a commission of inquiry into the allegations.
The commission found that SABC staff were instructed to exclude certain commentators from commenting on certain issues.
Among those on the list were Business Day political editor Karima Brown, political analysts Aubrey Matshiqi, Moeletsi Mbeki, Elinor Sisulu and the Zimbabwean newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube.
The commission found that the SABC's denial of a blacklist was "misleading by omission".
The commission found that Perlman had been presented with an official statement from the SABC which he knew from personal experience to be untrue, and had correctly chosen to confront it.
The commission found an atmosphere of fear in the SABC newsrooms, which was not conducive to journalistic independence.
Business Day wrote that it "understood" that Perlman was leaving the SABC because it was unwilling to address the commission's finding that there was "an atmosphere of fear and distrust" at the broadcaster.
- SAPA
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