arte Blanche
is a current affairs show -
and an investigative one at that. But
we don’t just do investigative work.
The reason it’s called
Carte Blanche
is
that anything goes. We also do light-
hearted stories and entertaining
stories. It’s been a passion to head up
a show like that. It’s the longest running in its genre on
South African television. We’ve been on air for 26
years. And I’m apparently the longest serving editor in
South Africa, on any publication.
Carte Blanche
reaches outside South Africa. For 12
years we ran a version of it that was pan-African. But
we found it became very difficult to operate through-
out the content, because it was often very difficult to
do stories that governments weren’t comfortable with.
So we then decided to focus exclusively on Southern
Africa. But we often hear from people that they see it in
countries where we don’t intend them to see it in. I’m
not entirely sure how it gets to them, but somehow or
other they manage to see it.
Has
Carte Blanche
been encouraged to change as
Africa has changed?
I wouldn’t say there’s been any influence. When it
became difficult – we’re talking about quite a long time
36
|
ISSUE 1 2015
|
THE CHANNEL
South African current affairs
programme
Carte Blanche
secured global broadcast rights
to the most sensational murder
trial of the decade – the trial of
Oscar Pistorius for the murder of
Reeva Steenkamp.
Carte
Blanche
’s executive producer
George Mazarakis tells us how
its pop-up channel “Trial TV”
brought the world inside South
Africa’s justice system
TAKINGTV
C
TO COURT
