Zambia: Mass media
Extracted from: Illona Tip, James Gadin and Maureen Maloi 2009 "Chapter 14: Zambia" IN Denis Kadima and Susan Booysen (eds) Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa 1989-2009: 20 Years of Multiparty Democracy, EISA, Johannesburg,.
Zambia has been a constitutional democracy since the early 1990s, with freedom of speech constitutionally guaranteed. As yet there is no Freedom of Information Act in place, even if the constitution guarantees freedom of speech. Although the process of consultation started in 2001, a bill has been tabled before parliament, and withdrawn for further consultations. Before 2000 there was but one private-for-profit radio station and a single religious radio station. Since then more private owners - with religious, commercial and community ownership and control - have emerged. Although the state still has the same number of radio channels it had in 2000, it has legal authority over the licensing of radio stations. However, the media has faced challenges in expressing this right in practice. The Roman Catholic Church owns several radio stations countrywide, contributing to the increase in the number of radio stations since 2000 from seven to 14 (Banda 2006, 17). Tables 4 and 5 indicate the broadcasting and ownership status of radio stations.
Table 4: Percentage of audience share for regional stations
Table source: Banda 2006, 18.
Table 5: Broadcasting and ownership status of radio stations
Table source: Banda 2006, 18.
Despite the constitutional provision guaranteeing freedom of speech, the media face challenges in their reporting. For example, in terms of section 69 of the Penal Code it is a criminal offence to defame the president. A case in point is the charges of defamation laid by the president against Fred M'membe, the editor the Post newspaper, who was dismissed in February 2006 after the state chose not to proceed with the prosecution. Antagonism towards the media has affected both the public and private spheres. For example, in May 2006, two party functionaries with the UNPD stopped a photojournalist from the state-owned daily newspaper the Times of Zambia from entering a press briefing where the death of the UPND president, Anderson Mazoka, was to be announced, claiming that the state media had only generated 'negative coverage' of the late politician. In August of the same year a reporter and cameraman working for the state-owned ZNBC were harassed by a crowd at a rally for the opposition Patriotic Front President, Michael Sata, in the Chawama township of Lusaka (International Press Institute. 2006).
In 1996 the Misa Director, Methaetsile Leepile, issued a statement citing 17 incidents relating to journalists, civil society representatives and political party supporters for questioning the legitimacy of the elections (Africa Policy E-journal).
The ECZ, in consultation with all stakeholders, including the media, formulated and regulated the Electoral Code of Conduct, No. 90 of 2006. The Code lists specific duties for the media in regard to election reporting. These are outlined in clause 12, and include providing "fair and balanced reporting of the campaigns, policies, meetings, rallies and press conferences" (12(1)(a)) of all registered parties and candidates during the campaign period. The Code also requires "heads and other senior management staff" of public and private media organisations not to intimidate media practitioners and to allow them to "exercise professional judgement without undue influence" (12(3)).
The Code further requires that public television and radio broadcasters grant equal public airtime to all political parties for their political broadcasts (12(13(1)). An important requirement of the code is the obligation of the media to disclose accurate election results and provide updates on the progress of the vote count, and not to 'speculate' on election results (12(14)(1)).
The 2005 Constitutional Review Commission put forward several media provisions in the draft constitution. They included a provision for access to information and a stipulation that journalists were not obliged to disclose their sources, except in court. The government proposed, instead, that a statutory Press Complaints Authority be set up. This was rejected by Misa, who put forward the view that it was unnecessary "because members of the public have recourse to the courts of law or the Media Council of Zambia (MECOZ) to resolve any problems relating to unfair coverage or unethical reporting" (International Press Institute. 2006). At the time of writing the draft constitution was under discussion by the National Constitutional Conference.
In terms of election reporting, the public media is the only media with capacity to cover the whole country. This means that the ZNBC has to ensure that both Zambia Television and Zambia Radio give fair coverage to election candidates and parties. The ZNBC television channel claims to be a public-service broadcaster. However, Banda notes that "many commentators argue that it is run as an extra arm of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services" (Banda 2006, 21). There are several other commercial channels, namely MultiChoice Africa (DStv provider) and religious (the free-to-air Christian Trinity Broadcasting Network allied with the American TBN and Muvi TV) television broadcasters. As regards the newspaper arena, Table 6 outlines the total number of newspapers.
Table 6: Total number of newspapers
Table source: Banda 2006, 25.
The Post has a circulation of 29 000, the Times of Zambia one of 25 000 and the Zambia Daily Mail has the largest circulation, namely 40 000.
In terms of election coverage, according to the EISA Observer Mission most stakeholders noted that media coverage for the 2006 elections had improved in comparison to previous elections. However, it remained unbalanced, with both the private and public media displaying varying degrees of partisanship in their coverage of the campaign (EISA. 2007, 20).
While in general there has been an improvement in the environment in which the media conducts its duties in the run-up to elections, Misa noted incidents of harassment towards journalists reported by the Lusaka Times in October 2008. Misa condemned acts of harassment by cadres from the ruling MMD on journalists, citing the Electoral Code of Conduct that "empowers journalists to provide coverage to all political events in a free and peaceful manner" (lusakatimes.Com 2008). In a press statement issued on 7 November 2008, Misa noted that 16 media freedom violations occurred in September and October 2008, shortly before the presidential election, as compared as compared to six between January and August 2008. These incidents related to election reporting, and included physical harassment, threats of legal suits and ejection from premises of political events such as rallies. The same press statement commended the ECZ for allowing journalists free access to the presidential election results at polling stations.
Civic organisations and political parties also use publicly and privately owned electronic and print media. Political parties generally disseminate partisan information aimed at gaining votes. Publicly owned media are persistently accused by civic organisations and opposition parties of being biased in favour of the ruling party. The Electoral (Conduct) Regulations have tried to correct this situation by requiring media to give equal airtime, in the case of radio, and to report fairly. Unequal access to funds for advertising tends to undermine the impact of rules of fair play.
News websites
lusaktimes.com, [www] http://www.lusakatimes.com/ [opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
Post, [www] http://www.postzambia.com/ [opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
Times of Zambia, [www] http://www.times.co.zm/ [opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
Zambia Daily Mail, [www] http://www.daily-mail.co.zm [opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
References
AFRICA POLICY E-JOURNAL, [www] http://www.africaaction.org/docs96/zam9611.mis.htm (offline 30 Mar 2010).
BANDA, F 2006 Zambia: Research findings and conclusions, African Media Development Initiative, BBC World Service Trust, [www] http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/pdf/AMDI/zambia/amdi_zambia_full_report.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
EISA 2007 2006 Election Observer Mission Report [PDF document], No. 23, 28 September, Johannesburg, EISA.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE 2006 "World Press Review: Zambia" [www] www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/freedom_detail.html?country=/KW [opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
LUSAKTIMES.COM 2008 "Zambia: MISA condemns MMD cadres", 18 October, [www] http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=4828 [opens new window] (accessed 30 Mar 2010).
