Friday, March 29, 2024

President Banda in the USA

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It is gratifying that our President, Mr. Rupiah Banda, had the opportunity to visit the United States of America, after a long while, to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

I am sure the President and his entourage had the opportunity to watch CNN news, Fox News and other television news networks in their hotel rooms. One would be interested to know how those in the President’s entourage who are accustomed to the MMD-controlled public news media reacted to the freedom of speech and expression enjoyed by news broadcasters and political commentators.

The speeches by Muammar Gaddafi, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should have been quite refreshing to those who value dissent and criticism!

One would, of course, find solace in the President’s contemplation of privatizing some of the assets of the public news media, which he revealed in his recent speech during the opening of the 4th session of the 10th National Assembly.

In fact, there is also a need for the government to operationalise the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) in order for the broadcasting industry to be regulated by an independent body. Also, the government should enact the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill and make it possible for journalists to access information that is vital to both the media and members of the public.

The decision to privatize some or all the public news media institutions is long overdue. Zambians are fed up of the current situation whereby large segments of the news media are state-owned, under tight controls by the government of the day, and the virtues of individuals’ rights and freedoms are subordinate to those of the ruling party and the state. We are fed up of public news media institutions which operate as tools of the ruling political party and its leaders!

Finally, I wish to advise the President and his Cabinet to create an autonomous “Bureau of Statistics and Archives” and maintain the Zambia Daily Mail under its auspices. The Bureau should replace the Central Statistics Office (CSO) so that it can freely and independently collect, process, maintain, and publish essential data and information about our country, and should incorporate the National Archives of Zambia.

Henry Kyambalesa

17 COMMENTS

  1. The western media(USA) is owned by just a couple of companies(coparations) that can sway the opinion to their favor. The USA is now a government of the coparations by the coparations, for the coparations.Not the people.

  2. Zambia must take an approach which is not neccessarily a copy cat of the West ,but may learn possitive lessons thereof.W e need people who will identify emmediate and future deve needs of our coumtry and apply them whollistically.China,India ,Brazil,…etc are upcoming economic heavy weights but do not neccessarily follow the Wests way of things

  3. Chapwa, they might be owned by the corporations, but the people are still better of than us. I would gladly trade Time Mag for Times of Zambia any day. When was the last time you chaps bought a Govt owned paper? If it wasn’t for govt business, these papers would be insolvent (if they are not).
    Unfortunatley, RB is in Venezuela and if he picks up tips from there, kiss independent media good bye. in fact, the onslaught has already began

  4. Well good advise I must say, but I must say it is not built on the right premise. Perhaps the author would do better to do more research and then provide the advice. It seems he has a lot of advice for the government, which we full y welcome in the MMD govt, but we need advise premised on facts

    For example the author says that now that the Our president is in the US he will be able to see how liberal the media is. This is just wrong premise. I don’t know when the author was last in Zambia, but I will put it to you that all the MMD leaders have DSTV and the Internet in their homes and some in offices. All the news channels you talk about like CNN, BBC, SKY are available to our leaders. Maybe you can do an update on the article and premise it in the right context

  5. Saying a government is run by corporations is like saying fish is wet. Corporations have been running the world since the european renaissance it’s not hidden it’s common sense . The western media has the luxury of pluralism which zambian media doesn’t have. If you watch znbc tv all the talk about is the president , one would wonder if this was brainwashing. In the west the media offers various stand points for and against certain values for example foxnews is bigotted undercover ring wing racists , then theres MSNBC for leftwing tree huggers. the whole point of the media is for voices to help the public have an opinion , if theres one few voices like in zed certain things can easily be misrepresented

  6. Chapwa, which 2 companies or corporations run the 100+ news media institutions in the USA? Learn to be honest. Zambians are generally not known to be liars.

  7. Did the preident watch cnn to see how his shushushu got the number 1 prize for travelling or entering the wrong way in the un escalator?

  8. #6 chief bootlicker these mmd leaders can have all the dstv’s and internets,but they are not overly concerned with any divergent views coming from these media,they do not have the balls to accept criticism from the media,all they are concerned in is which part of their bread is buttered,these are politicians who will crush anyone with an opposing view,so it doesnt really matter if they watch cnn coz they wont learn anything from it…do you for once imagine Dickson Jere or Mulongoti watching cnn and the the following day coming up with a proposal in parliament to let znbc be critical of the government,never,if they can chase a photo journalist from covering the president coz she took “controversial pictures of the president” what more divergent and opposing views

  9. #10 Imfumu1
    Off the top of my head I can name AOL-Time Warner (CNN) , The Walt Disney Company, (ABC) Viacom, (CBS) General Electric (NBC and The New York Times) and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (Fox, Sky,Wall Street Journal and MySpace). Think of it, six people, or six boards of directors control the vast majority of information you receive each day.

  10. The point is corporations are slowly but surely muscling the US government out of the way. The people who we believe are in charge really have no power as long as they are beholding to corporate money. And let’s not forget the Federal Reserve, an unconstitutional body that answers to no one and controls US nation’s monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Banks and people who have stock in it control all this nation’s monetary rules including credit policies and how much money is printed etc.

  11. A piece of reminder that in the USA the media has a self regulatory system and it is the same case with many other countries and this is what the government in Zambia is trying to do….. first to advise and encourage the media to create such a body which will be legally recognised but this is what the media does not want…… therefore the government has the duty to help them create such a system if they cannot do it themselves…… the current system has been abused a lot by the media, and since there is no legal framework to guide them we have seen so much insults here instead of seeing news…… people’s rights are being trampled upon and most of these people have no forum to defend themselves since the same media can chose wether to report their point of view or not…

  12. Chapwa, we need to be accurate when we communicate on the Internet because some people who read what we write are foreigners who are likely to despise us as being illiterate. You said “The western media(USA) is owned by just a couple of companies(coparations).” The word “couple” means 2 rather than 6 or more. Besides, the author of the article you are criticising is complaining about the “public news media institutions which operate as tools of the ruling political party and its leaders” rather than who owns the institutions. We know that public news media institutions in Zambia are owned by the tax payer, not MMD or government leaders.

  13. MMD Chief Bootlicker, I have read the article you are criticising sevearl times and I cannot see where the author said “Our president is in the US he will be able to see how liberal the media is.” Where did Zambians like you get their education? Or is it just wanting to criticise for the sake of it?

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