KCET Reverses Its Ruling Against S. Africa Show

Under increasing pressure from community groups, members of its own staff and a major public-television station in New York, KCET Channel 28 reversed itself Friday and said that it will continue to broadcast the news magazine “South Africa Now.”

Station manager Stephen Kulczycki, backed by president William Kobin, said in a statement that he had screened an upcoming segment of the program and was “delighted” to determine that he no longer found it biased or unbalanced.

When he had announced a week earlier that KCET was dropping the series, which is carried on 80 stations nationwide, Kulczycki had charged that it was slanted in favor of the African National Congress.

“We still have concerns, but based on what we have seen today, it appears that the producers are making a good-faith effort to address our needs,” Kulczycki said.

Emily Kasriel, a producer on the show, denied that any changes had been made to suit KCET but said: “We’re tremendously pleased with this decision, and we think it represents a tremendous victory for objective news reporting about the issues in Southern Africa.”

David Horowitz, whose conservative media watchdog group, the Committee on Media Integrity, had claimed responsibility for raising the issue of the show’s alleged bias with Kulczycki, called the reversal “political and moral cowardice.”

“Whereas the previous decision was made not under pressure, as a matter of judgment of the show’s indefensible nature, this one was steamrollered by a political juggernaut from the left,” Horowitz said in a telephone interview from Cape Town, South Africa, where he is researching a magazine article.

But community activists and the program’s producers saw the decision to reinstate “South Africa Now” as a victory for the grass-roots efforts of those who had protested the near loss of the program in the nation’s second most populous metropolitan area.

“I think it really shows that any time the community begins to mobilize in its own defense, there are no obstacles we can’t overcome,” said Michael Zinzun, who had organized protests over KCET’s decision.

People ranging from City Councilman Robert Farrell to anti-apartheid activists to USC professors who use “South Africa Now” in the classroom had pleaded with KCET officials to keep the program on the air. One group appeared before the station’s Community Advisory Board on Wednesday and persuaded that body to issue a statement reprimanding station executives for pulling the show.

Kulczycki said that KCET had agreed to pick up at least another six weeks of the program. Whether it then takes the other seven installments that the producers are planning to make this season depends on their continuing to be “unbiased,” he said.

KCET said that it would run “South Africa Now” only because the show’s producers, Danny Schechter and Rory O’Connor, had promised that it would not be biased, and had visibly changed their approach for the last program of the current 13-week series run, due to be broadcast here Sunday at 9 a.m.

In addition, the station said, it had received assurances from officials at station WNET in New York, which assists in the production of the show and is its sponsor in the public-television system, that they would monitor “South Africa Now” for fairness.

Schechter and O’Connor, who had denied the accusations of bias, could not be reached for comment, but Kasriel disputed Kulczycki’s contention that the program had been altered. “The show has not been changed,” she said, adding that the standards used in the program Kulczycki screened Friday had been applied throughout the show’s previous five seasons.

“If people think bias is covering things other people don’t cover, that’s a strange idea of bias,” Kasriel said.