FILM AND PUBLICATION
Cause for satisfaction Looked at in one way, the Film and Publication Board (FPB) has cause for satisfaction. This is attributable to the transformation of the rigid apartheid’s directorate of publications to the more democratic FPB. Written by Mzwandile Jacks CEO of the Film and Publication Board – Yoliswa Makhasi
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ew weeks ago, the press ombudsman ruled in the FPB’s favour after the board complained about the graphic sex pictures published on the front page of the Sowetan newspaper. The press ombudsman said the Sowetan newspaper's publishing of prominent pictures of two officers having sex on duty was not in the public interest. The ombudsman said the newspaper need not have published the pictures so prominently and explicitly to get its message across because there was no 'public interest' to do so. He ordered the paper to apologise on both its front and second pages. The pictures showed an officer from correctional services and a policewoman having sex in a hospital. Yoliswa Makhasi, the CEO of FPB, said it was wrong for the publication to do so because the Sowetan is a family newspaper. “When they did that, they exposed children to pornography,” Makhasi said. The FPB is a statutory body established by the Films and Publications Act of 1996. It replaced the Directorate of Publications which operated during the apartheid era. Its task is mainly to classify films,
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