An analysis of racial stereotyping of the South African Police in the television programmes Carte Blanche and Special Assignment from August 2003 to September 2004

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The aim of this assignment is to examine two investigative journalism programmes in SouthAfrica, namely Carte Blanche and SpecialAssignment in order to ascertain whether two SouthAfrican policing organisations have been subjected to racist stereotyping on these twoprogrammes. Both these programmes are held in high esteem within South African andinternational media circles. Carte Blanche has won many awards, such as the prestigious eNNAfrican Journalist of the Year Award in 2002. Special Assignment won the equivalent award in2001. The approaches and styles in revealing the truth by using investigative forms of journalismare however slightly different. Both Carte Blanche and Special Assignment have producedstories from August 2003 to September 2004 that have exposed corruption within the SouthAfrican policing organisations. Many of the perpetrators within the police force were identifiedas people of colour. This assignment therefore aims to discover whether racist stereotyping existsin this niche of investigative journalism television programmes. This opens up the possibility forthese portrayals to be seen as stereotypical, since the dominant press codes in South Africastipulates that reference to 'race' in news reporting should only be done where it will contributesignificantly to understanding the subject matter or if the reference to the race of the person isparticularly applicable. This assignment aims to discover whether racist stereotyping exists inthis niche of investigative journalism television programmes.The research method comprised analysing programmes on Carte Blanche and SpecialAssignment that dealt with the South African policing organisations from August 2003 toSeptember 2004. The original transcripts of the programmes were retrieved from the relevantwebsites of Carte Blanche and Special Assignment and have also been studied. Sources on mediaethics as well as newspaper and magazine articles dealing with the South African policingorganisations, crime and corruption were scrutinized in order to provide background informationfor the study. The analyses of the programmes was complemented by interviews conducted withthe investigative journalists at the helm of the two programmes, namely, Ruda Landman fromCarte Blanche and Jessica Pitchford from Special Assignment.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University