By SAM PHIRI – GREETINGS once again now from the comfort of my office after a marathon tour of Government infrastructure development projects in four provinces with Dr Mutaba Mwali, Deputy Minister of Works and Supply.
Whilst in Luapula at a named lodge, I took interest to watch the main news bulletin of the privately owned Muvi Television.
What was really surprising was that after a reasonably long time in the television industry, where one expects to see a tremendous improvement in almost all aspects of news scripting and presentation, the contrary seems to take dominance.
Unfortunately, what I saw leaves much to be desired starting with the presentation of the news, the script itself all the way to news packages or reports.
What shocked me first was how they dramatised a serious hard news item of Mr Miles Sampa being blocked at the airport on the Copperbelt by suspected Patriotic Front (PF) cardres.
The news headline for such a serious story was written as “It was like a Tom and Jerry drama when former Matero Member of Parliament Miles Sampa was intercepted …”
Honestly, how would you start such a serious story that even borders on security and injures democratic tenets like a light-hearted news items which in most cases are put at the very end of the news?
Even if it is house style, certain things are obvious and need not be compromised in such a way. This is by all means the fault of the news writers and editors who pass it over to an innocent news caster who will carry the blame from the less understanding viewer.
This platform respects the fact that Muvi TV is one television station that really thrives hard to make a mark and a huge difference in the television broadcasting industry but that does not warrant the station to cast aside professionalism.
The other flaw was on the news package on George Mpombo’s son who allegedly shot dead and beheaded his girlfriend.
Yes everyone understands the magnitude of the story and that details in this case are cardinal but what would spoil it all is how these details are brought out and presented.
The package on George Mpompo’s son was a ‘mini documentary’ for lack of a better term which took too much space of the news.
But was it supposed to be in the main news segment as lengthy as it was? That would have made a special stand-alone report and not fusing it all in the news.
The other  slip-up that I saw was in a full shot of the standing news caster. At first, I thought the full shot was only for the headlines and the intro into the news before switching to a close-up.
I could hardly identify the newscaster more especially that he was reading the news from the hard copies unlike the teleprompter meaning that his face was most of the time downcast.
There are moments where the BBC World News would start their news casting the full profile of the caster but when it comes to the commencement of the news details, it would always come to the close-up shot. All TV stations do that maybe with an exception of Muvi TV Up to today, if I were taken to Muvi Studios to identify the news caster who was reading the news that particular day under review, I would not identify him for the reasons stated above. It’s not good.
Now the following morning, I tuned into ZNBC with anticipation of seeing a news package by Misheck Moyo who I saw labour up to around 03:00 hours working on a report on the tour of Government projects with Dr Mwali.
Despite the heavy challenges of internet, load shedding and time, the young man was determined working with vigour to deliver a good piece.
I wanted to see it during the ZNBC’s morning live that was presented by one Brian Mwale and Chiko Mukoka.
Believe it or not, ZNBC went for about 20 minutes without sound and when they tried to restore sound, what we could get was the sound of the documentary that had aired earlier.
When they briefly cut picture transmission of the two presenters to work on the sound,  that was when the presenters’ voices, especially that of Brian were heard in the background fuming.
I wonder what had happened that day and especially the competence of the sound engineer on duty because when I met Misheck later in the morning; one could tell that he was disappointed though he could not bring it out.
It was 21 minutes of picture no sound or picture with wrong sound which is a huge flaw by such a reputable institution.
Now on a lighter note, today all eyes will be on DStv Supersport 9 where Zambia will be locking horns with the tricky Guinea in the quarter-finals of the African Nations Championship (CHAN).
Zambia has maintained a clean slate this far and we can not wait to see what today’s’ results will bring forth. We believe in Zambia we believe in Chipolopolo !
Now as we close, I think it’s now common place that every Zambian knows that one of its finest musicians Petersen has been nominated for the prestigious Kora Award.
The appeal from this platform is that voting is the only way the Zambian flag will be raised high in the name of Zagaze.
Congratulations to Petersen and all the best.
Let’s continue interacting on 0962215687  email samphiri77@gmail.com