I hope almost everyone watched the live two-hour long Sunday interview on ZNBC where Grevazio Zulu hosted Chief Government spokesperson Chishimba Kambwili.
Frankly speaking, it was one of those rare interviews that created a lot of talking points among the audience and reactions from different stakeholders. It was GOOD!
The first observation and talking point was drawn from the length of the programme which lasted for close to, if not two hours.
Not that the the subject or the guest was boring, but that the time taken was rather too long for many tired viewers.
The minister kept most viewers awake though, as he churned out answers from the experienced Grevazio Zulu in an interesting manner.
Some suggestions coming through were that it would have been better if the interview was done in two parts. But that now remains if the ‘Ifs’.
This writer watched each and every second of the interview and noticed one thing that many might have not paid attention to — the sign language interpreter Chola Kaoma was really tired.
I think most of you have seen that if there was a long live State function where there was sign language,interpreters will be at least two because it is not easy as it may look to sign for just even 30 minutes.
That day Chola Kaoma was the one who did the interpreting of the main news and few minutes later, she went into  serious two-hour non-stop interpreting.
Even Grevazio and the minister had at least some time to cool their throats with water as either of them was asking or answering; but what could Chola do because her hands were needed every second of the entire long interview.
At some point, those who understand sign language would agree with this platform that the lady had started dropping hands to at least rest. She would be seen rest her hands on her laps.
As though that was not enough, immediately after the interview, the poor young lady just had to move to the main news desk for the delayed 22:00 main news.
This platform only hopes that Chola was reasonably rewarded for such a gallant long and tiring service to the silent side of the nation.
She barely rested from 19:00 hours to 22:30 hours. We are talking about close to four hours of sign language interpreting.
Still on the same sign language, some concerned viewer has rightly observed that the inset lacks consistence as sometimes it will be big or you would see technicians adjusting the size during live broadcasts.
This platform totally agrees with this viewer who preferred anonymity. From the interview, we move to local Prime television.
On Monday I went to a nearby home shop to get some groceries where I apparently found the Prime TV main news just beginning.
The first main item of the news caught my attention and there was no way I was going to leave without getting the full story.
The story headline was ‘Patriotic Front (PF) and United Party for National Development (UPND) cadres clash’.
To be honest, the story and picture of the ugly political scene was well captured to this platform’s satisfaction.
However, what spoiled it all was the news writer who wrote that “PF and UPND cadres on Monday clashed”.
This left me and I believe many other viewers with questions as to which Monday the newscaster was referring to.
Was it that very Monday where she was supposed to simply and correcly say ‘today’ or the other Monday where she was supposed to say last Monday.
That is lack of seriousness on the news writers and the editors; a serious mistake that would make viewers discredit the news items.
It gave me a huge homework to find out when that really happened which is not good for TV broadcasting.
I even remembered having critiqued the same television station for repeating a sports news item word-for-word after three days.
What will make me not think that the story was probably one of those recycled items that could make good headlines especially with that good picture?
Still on the privately-owned TVs, last Saturday I tuned to Mobi TV in the morning to watch a youth programme called ‘Boys and Girls Unlimited’.
I was glued to this programme not that it was interesting but that I was shocked to see unprofessionalism at its best.
Here are three teenaged girl presenters and one boy discussing issues relating to the youths.
Now, I tried to get the gist of what they were really trying to communicate, but all I could get was simply noise.
The youngsters were just, for lack of a better term, ‘making noise’ as they would hardly give each other chance to drive a point home.
It was as though they were fighting for airtime.
This platform has from time and again advised TV presenters to go by an approved written script to present their programmes of such nature to avoid such unprofessionalism.
We end here today but let us continue interacting on various issues that will make our television industry a better platform than it is today.
Email samphiri77@gmail.com of text 0962215687