Yours truly test driving the set of the new news channel Open News
I don't know about you but I've had
enough of feeling suffocated by the world's judgment. I don't want it anymore!!
What you say, how you say it, how you look, what you do, how much money you have, where you live, what you eat... it feels as if we're all being judged every moment - because we are.
We're living in a world where honest opinions are dominated by fear - the fear of expressing what you really think and feel because of the dire consequences. And the consequences can be dreadful - people have been put to death for their opinions since the start of time.
It almost happened to me when I dared to criticise Oprah for an interview she did when she came to South Africa to open her school a couple of years ago. People literally screamed that I needed to die instead of debating the issue and the comments on my article had to be shut down to save me from the abuse.
It's this oppression that the new Open News channel will be tackling from Thursday (1 November). It goes live at 17h00 on Channel 120 on Openview - with no "HD" anymore - it's been dropped from the name for some unexplained reason.
The channel features a line-up of five permanent anchors who are going to report the news and give their opinions on it, in a talk-radio-type set-up.
They are...
Sports anchor Adrian Botha (OFM), Naledi Moleo (SAFM), Ayanda Dlamini (Good Hope FM), Koketso Sachane (Cape Talk) and Inge Isaacs on weather.
They'll be encouraging viewers to share their points of view too, using technology to share people's opinions. Viewers will be able to WhatsApp their thoughts to be featured during the bulletins.
The channel was launched at the e.tv studios in Cape Town on Thursday and no-one explained how they'll be choosing which opinions get heard/seen and which DON'T so I'm thinking this will be a whole new world of angst for them once they get started.
More pics...
The cameras and camera people are going to be in some of the shots during the broadcast.
They have a team of about 30 to 40 people working on the whole shebang, filming, interacting with social media etc.
The broadcast runs from 17h00 to 23h00 daily. The rest of the time will feature feeds from international broadcasts with a view to increasing the South African team's time.