WE hail Information and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Godfrey Malama for affirming that Zambia’s three public media institutions are all free of Government interference.
Indeed, we can also affirm that the Government does not tell us what to publish and what not to but, instead, we use our professionalism and ethical requirements in dealing with news.
There has always been a wrong notion that the Times of Zambia, Zambia Daily Mail and Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) are controlled by the Government.
The misconception usually arises from the critics’ failure to understand that these institutions, by the mere fact that they are Government media, serve the Government of the day and the general public irrespective of affiliation.
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One thing critics must know is that public media are there to propagate the policies of the Government irrespective of party affiliation, and to inform, educate and entertain the public.
We are not there to be used as channels of insults against the Government or any other person or organisation in the country, but to be channels through which the Government and the people can interact in a peaceful environment. People need to know what their Government is doing and that is just what we facilitate, not character assassination.
Therefore, the three institutions will serve any Government of the day since that is their core duty.
It has little to do with a deliberate attempt for the three media institution to be a political mouth-piece.
Like the Public Order Act, the three institutions serve the legitimate Government of the day by projecting Government policies jut like private media project the policies of their owners.
Thus, accusation that the three institutions are biased is misplaced and usually comes from opposition party members who fail to appreciate how the same institutions will serve them if they form Government. However, we are not going to be used to trade insults for political motives.
To the opposition, let’s talk issues, not insults and character assassinations, and see if we will not publish them.
Accusation of the Government media pampering to the whims of those in Government is an old one and can be traced to the colonial period.
During the colonial period when this paper was called Northern News, nationalists complained of poor coverage of their activities since the paper largely covered settler interests.
However, when UNIP formed Government in 1964, the same party that had not long ago complained of news coverage black-out of nationalistic activities utilised the same newspaper whose name it changed to Times of Zambia.
The English say what is good for the goose is good for the gander since if politicians condemning the Government come into power they will utilise the services of the Government media.
About biasness, no matter how much we may try to ignore it, human communication always takes place in a context, through a medium, and among individuals and groups who are situated historically, politically, economically and socially.
This state of affairs is neither bad nor good. It simply is. Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message.
Sociologists say politicians are certainly biased and explicitly so.
In Zambia, some opposition parties who are accusing the Government media of being biased have their own publication both in print and online.
Journalists are guided by the journalistic ethics of objectivity, fairness and these are emphasised in the profession.
Bias does not suggest that a message is false or unfair. It only emanates from human fallibility that affects us all journalists, politicians, clergymen and other professionals.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has also been labelled a relentless propagandist media that lacks impartiality and objectivity.
Like in the case of three media institutions in Zambia, critics miss the point to understand that the BBC was in the first place created to project the image of Britain.