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The University of Cape Town's UCT Radio apologised "unequivocally" on Wednesday for a tweet about the Moses Mabhida Stadium pitch invasion, which also left presenters shocked by the backlash against them.
The tweet, which was removed, read: "Do black people really deserve nice things after the occurrences at Moses Mabhida Stadium this past evening?"
"Yes, we have seen the error. Yes, we apologise unequivocally," Ayanda Nyathi, one of the presenters of the Live Drive Show, said on Wednesday night.
Nyathi said the only version left of the tweet was screen grabs.
Their own politics did not lean towards what people thought they were suggesting, he explained.
They had wanted to talk about the anti-black sentiments being expressed about the incident, which saw at least 18 people injured, one seriously, during Saturday's pitch invasion.
On Saturday, fans stormed the pitched at the stadium after Kaizer Chiefs lost to Free State Stars 2-0 in the Nedbank Cup. Seats, hoardings, barriers, camera equipment and journalists' cars were damaged.
Nyathi said many of the tweets afterwards tainted all black people.
"Frankly put, they were racist," he said.
Nyathi said, as a station, the listener would have to go "far and wide" to find a campus station that talks as much about politics and current affairs as they do. But their own tweet to start the discussion about the racist tweets was a mistake.
"The reason why we are talking about this as a mistake, is because there is genuinely nothing else to say," said Nyathi.
"It was an attempt, poorly executed, but it was an attempt nonetheless to try and find out why that is," said Nyathi of the Twitter comments on the stadium incident.
However, they were "burnt" by the backlash of their attempt to decode why Twitter responded to the pitch invasion in the way it did, and that Twitter considered the apology for their own tweet "null and void".
Fellow presenter, Qaqamba Filitane, said: "...We are definitely in the wrong, we realise that."
Fellow presenter Khumbuza Cele told Vernac News that the trio would exercise better screening in future.
Comment from the university and station management was not immediately available, but in the above report, the trio said they had not faced disciplinary action.
UCT radio describes itself as the "biggest campus station in Cape Town", aimed at "aspirational youth".
Its broadcast reaches the northern suburbs (Milnerton, Edgemead and Bellville), Cape Flats (Athlone, Mitchells Plain, Langa, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu) and the Southern Suburbs (Rondebosch, Newlands, Claremont and Kenilworth).
