GOVERNMENT has urged the media to focus on issue based reporting if they are to attract international awards like the annual CNN African Media Awards.
Information and Broadcasting Services deputy minister Forrie Tembo said scandalizing personalities or defaming individuals would not earn the local Journalists international recognition.
Mr Tembo told journalists during the welcome dinner ahead of the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards 2015 that there was need for individual journalists to invest their resources into issue based reporting.
“You don’t expect to get nominated and eventually win an award with a defamatory story but issued based and investigative stories that help to shape society in the right direction,” Mr Tembo said.
“You don’t expect to get nominated and eventually win an award with a defamatory story but issued based and investigative stories that help to shape society in the right direction,” Mr Tembo said.
About 40 journalists from Zambia entered the awards but none was nominated. There are 31 finalists from 15 countries are expected to walk away with an award.
Mr Tembo, cited also the lack of exposure as one of the factors that led to none nomination of local journalists to the annual prestigious award.
He said it was against this background that Government decided to carry some local journalists so that they could learn from their counterparts and make a difference in future.
Mr Tembo said Government would continue working with partners like MultiChoice to help local journalists acquire and sharpen their skills for them to compete on the international scene favourably.
Mr Tembo, who is accompanied by information permanent Secretary Godfrey Malama, Director Media Development Isaac Chipampe, are here to witness the event which marks the 20th anniversary of the African media awards.
Comment:
Most of our journalists thrive only in engaging themselves on ifimasele, scandalizing everyone, especially those in all manner of leadership positions, based mainly on ethnicity, and engaging in other negative and irrational ad hominem attacks. You will never be nominated, for anything!
Ni rigging or vote buying…. not even any of our own LT reporters or The Post? So why are we here, we comment to help these journalist, kanshi tuleichusha fye.
How can journalists at ZNBC, Times of Zambia and Daily Mail ever win an award when all they do is regurgitate what the uneducated Chishimba Kambwili tells them. The journalism profession in the country has gone to the dogs.
Forrie you are talking from your backside.
Even with your assertions, unless you work for the post and if you get somewhat sued by the Government and get international exposure, you have zero to no chance of winning anything.
Most zambian journalists are like policemen they are not fit for purpose and their written grammar or vocabulary is absolutely appalling.
The majority of them I must add.
Listen to a zambian reading news on ZNBC for some of us coming from abroad it is laughable why such standards are acceptable there
Thanks
BB2014
Read the ONLINE POST headlines SINCE SIX MONTHS AGO AND COMPARE WITH OUR SA PRESS!
ITS ALWAYS ABOUT LUNGU, LUNGU, LUNGU AND THE DIGRESSED FATHERLESS LUONDE AS THEIR LOCAL CORRESPONDENT.
When we comment on the mediocrity of Zambian journalists, no one wants to listen. Zambian journalists need to specialize to hone their skills! Those journalists who were trying to comment this afternoon during the ZNBC coverage of the 2016 budget were embarrassingly mediocre!
I nominate Ben Kangwa
In the absence of international travel and exposure, there is the internet — yes, the internet opens door. (psst — it does more than fb, whatsapp and p0rn).
We need to maximize use of the internet whenever and wherever we can.
Umwana ashenda, afwile abomfya internet!
#OneZambia
Poor reporting skills, poor training, poor English all contribute to mediocre journalism. The journalist we have in Zambia are of poor caliber. You just up have to read some of the stories on LT. How do we expect to have journalists of a high caliber when our education system from primary to higher education is so poor. The standards have dropped so much that it is difficult to find young people who are articulate.
It is amazing how the very same people which contributed to the destruction of free press have courage and arrogance to lecture others.
After four years of verbal abuse, midnight police raids, planting of criminal evidence and threats to family members, this half-baked “democrat” (lol) has a courage to comment on the state of journalism in Zambia?
Mr. Tembo, please do us a big favor, pick your “democratic” (lol) and “educated” (lol, lol) boss Kambwili and dive in the rubbish bin of history where you belong.
Journalists are the mirrors of society and leadership in that society. For decades you have intimidated journalists and pitted one faction against the other against the backdrop of perpetuating poverty and dispossession by way of high affordability. Why, then, is it a surprise that the quality of reporting mirrors that governance? It is NOT the journalists’ fault, I am sorry. It is the fault of your mediocre governance system that invokes prayer in lieu of competent solution, insult in lieu of sober reflection, and personality cult in lieu of institutional strengthening. Enough said.
The fact is that there is no democracy in our country, period. Our democracy will always be rotten and meaningless. This is what we have seen from the past 51 years. In every GRZ in Zambia leaders want to rule like the British were ruling us during colonies days, to these leaders that is the democracy they like. There are no dictators and bootlickers in a true democracy and most the current population of Zambian were not part of these Colonia days
The best our oppressed journalist can do for now is to find other jobs and to the leaders, as our leaders are happy when things are reported in the way they feel or think. Then we see who will buy or even read their shallow minded journalism
to let the leaders
There are no quality standards at all in Zambia & quality starts with the highest office of the land. What admirable quality attributes come from that office to inspire the rest to follow suit. What pronouncements have come out crying out for the urgent need to remodel our society?