Journalists Censored
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Zambia’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services, Mike Mulongoti, has warned journalists at the state-owned Daily Mail and Times of Zambia not to criticise the government Speaking to trainee journalists at The Post newspaper on September 10, 2007, Mulongoti said it would be “unacceptable” for journalists working for public media to criticise the government. An article in The Post quotes Mulongoti as saying, “Journalist at the Times and the Daily also have wives and children, they have jobs to protect, don’t forget that. Before they write anything against me, they will: “'What will the minister do? Will I be in the office tomorrow?’” Despite saying he said he never explicitly gave direction to the managing editors of the two papers, Mulongoti said they were expected to show self-restraint in the stories they published. Fr. Frank Bwalya, chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia, expressed his disappointment at Mulongoti’s remarks, which he called “retrogressive” and belonging to the one-party state era and not Zambia’s current multiparty democracy. Fr. Bwalya said he found the statement regrettable. “In their proper context, we believe that the words were meant to threaten our hardworking colleagues in the public media that they risk losing their jobs if they exercise editorial independence and professionalism in their work,” he said. Fr. Bwalya said state-owned media should serve the interests of the public and operate free of government influence. “Public media should not exclusively inform the public about government programmes, but also give members of the public an opportunity to criticise government and its leaders when their actions call for criticism,” he said. Zambia has taken some steps to transform the state-owned broadcaster into a public-service broadcaster with the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) Amendment Act of 2002. The amendment, among other things, provides for the creation of an independent board to run ZNBC. However, little progress has been made towards implementing the Act. source: MISA Ends |
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