A “buried” report reveals that the South African public believes that the SABC is biased towards the ruling ANC, undermining credibility in the institution.

That’s the claim made by the Democratic Alliance, which says it has unearthed a research document put together under the name Project Kindle and meant to understand declining viewership of the public broadcaster since 2009.

DA MP Marian Shinn claims the public broadcaster’s management “buried” the document because it “delivered bad news”.

“I am reliably informed that, because the research agency did not educate and inform research respondents ‘when their opinions and perceptions are wrong’, it was rejected by the SABC’s market intelligence department,” Shinn says in a statement.

She says the research was conducted last year via focus groups made up of all race groups throughout South Africa. According to Shinn, the “majority of respondents feel that the SABC’s news is biased” towards the ruling party, leading to low credibility.

“Most consumers seek other news sources to find balanced political views of events such as Marikana or president [Jacob] Zuma’s compound at Nkandla,” she says.

“SABC 1 is believed to be the more biased of the SABC’s three free-to-air TV channels and there is a perception that politicians make decisions on content rather than the editors,” she adds.