Special Report Transcript Episode 87, Section 5, Time 57:53

Well, this is then the end of the road for the Special Report. This is the 87th time I sat here introducing our programme to you. You saw so much of me some people might have thought this was my programme. It wasn’t. The Special Report was a very special team effort of the most hard working and dedicated journalists I have ever worked with. They paid a heavy price in terms of their private lives and even their health. I want to thank all of them, present and past members of this team, from the bottom of my heart. We also thank all the video editors, cameramen, sound and studio people who helped us make this Special Report one of the SABC’s most successful projects ever. A final word of thank to everybody at the Truth Commission, commissioners, media liaison people and hearing organisers. This is a sad moment for all of us. We have lived the Truth Commission process for two years. Despite all the criticism and cynicism I must tell you that our team believes very deeply in the process of truth and reconciliation. It has been a tremendous honour and privilege for us to be the journalists to record this part of our nation’s history. We thank you for watching us in your millions. And we thank you for the kind and encouraging words we got through phone calls and faxes, e-mail and conversations in the streets of all the cities and towns we went to. We ask you to keep on following the events of the Commission through television news, radio and the newspapers. The Truth Commission is in the process of compiling its final report which will be made at the end of July. Our team will spend the next three months make a number of special documentaries of the whole Truth Commission process which will then be broadcast in the weeks leading up to the final report. We wish you peace.

Notes: Max du Preez

References: there are no references for this transcript