ANC Youth League guns for Zizi Kodwa over ANN7 criticism

The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) on Wednesday lambasted the governing party’s spokesperson Zizi Kodwa for slamming Gupta-owned news channel ANN7 over its reportage while requesting the spin doctor to “refrain from targeting black-owned media houses working for a progressive South Africa”.

This followed Kodwa’s scathing rebuke of ANN7 on Tuesday after the channel claimed that the ANC’s statement on Friday condemning Brian Molefe’s reappointment as CEO of Eskom was not authorised by the party’s structures.

ANN7 cited unnamed sources who said Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was apparently upset about Molefe’s return to the power utility.

In a series of tweets, the ANCYL came to the defence of the network, slating Kodwa’s remarks on Twitter that ANN7 was the equivalent of Fox News in the US.

He said: “I feel your pain at this moment, you will never capture the ANC through lies and deception.” While the party’s secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told News24 ANN7 was “talking rubbish”.

The youth league said when President Jacob Zuma is attacked by white-owned media “in the name of expression of freedom”, the spokesperson is not quick to challenge the media houses, but takes on ANN7.

It also said the news channel was “the only channel giving just and fair coverage in South Africa, unlike old white media houses”.

This is not the first time the ANC has criticised ANN7. Earlier this month, the party dismissed reports by the network alleging that some of the party’s top six leaders had “pushed” Zuma to attend Cosatu’s Workers’ Day rally in Bloemfontein, Free State, where he was booed and heckled by workers.

The ANC accused ANN7 of being “a mouthpiece of the factional divisions” in the ANC, saying the channel had consistently shown itself as being intent on “driving wedges” and pitting ANC leaders against each other.

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