TODAY the media fraternity globally celebrates the 2016 World Press Freedom Day under the theme: ‘Access to Information and Fundamental Freedoms – This Is Your Right!’
As media practitioners, we should also live up to the challenge from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Director General Irina Bokova who has said “I call on everyone to stand united in defending and encouraging Press freedom and the right to access to information. This is essential for human rights and dignity, for our aspirations for sustainable development, for the common determination to build lasting peace.”
The genesis of World Press Freedom Day is hinged on the proclamation made by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO’s General Conference.
Since then, May 3, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, has been celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.
It is an opportunity to: Celebrate the fundamental principles of Press freedom; assess the state of Press freedom throughout the world; defend the media from attacks on their independence; and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in their line of duty.
Fortunately in Zambia, there hasn’t been any death apart from the usual scuffles where journalists have sometimes been verbally assaulted.
The Zambian media, which started as a preserve of white settlers through publications like this one – then called Northern News, Zambia Daily Mail – then called Livingstone Mail and later Central African Mail, and the Northern Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), has much to celebrate about since it has now been extended to the masses.
Now we have several newspapers, radio and TV stations and online media which offer citizens a wide choice of news sources.
Speaking during the inauguration of the Mass Media Complex in Lusaka in 1982, then president Kenneth Kaunda was quoted as saying ‘Every one of us has a right to speak and a right to be heard.
What everybody else is saying and doing affects everybody else’s life struggle and personal opportunities. This Complex we are now commissioning is a cardinal instrument in this vital process of rebuilding our personal lives.’
It is several years when Dr Kaunda made this statement to the mass media now being a reality than the remotest idea it once was then.
However, as we celebrate this important day, we should realise that the press is under siege from some sections of online media which is tarnishing the image of the profession.
While if used properly online media can supplement mainstream media, when abused it can bring the press in disrepute since the former can attract quack writers leading to all kinds of unprofessional reporting.
The term Fourth Estate as the media is called, is an institution which though may not have official recognition, is responsible for making or breaking governments and hence, one cannot undermine the political and social power it wields.