MISA Zambia says the closure of the Bulletin & Record magazine will have a negative impact on the media landscape in the country.
In a statement, MISA Zambia said it will engage the publishers to ascertain the actual circumstances surrounding the closure of the publication.
It said the closure of the Bulletin & Record will have a negative impact on the media landscape, devoid of investigative and deeply analytical stories which enables the nurturing of informed voters.
MISA said there has been an outcry from various media owners over the increasing cost of news print, unstable economic conditions including currency fluctuations, intermittent power supply and the long hours of load shedding.
It said this resulted in the cumulative increase of cover prices for the major daily newspapers from K3.00 to K8.00 for the Times, Daily Mail and Daily Nation while the Post increased its cover price from K3.00 to K10.00.
The Bulletin and Record, a leading local monthly magazine covering politics, economics, lifestyle, sport, entertainment has announced its decision to close down.
The publishers of the magazine stated they have been ‘forced’ out of publication due to the current ‘economic circumstances’ among other reasons.
The closure is perfectly understandable. First of all, it is very difficult getting paid-for adverts. Secondly the cost of printing is very high as Zambia does not produce paper, inks and packaging. Thirdly, customers are broke and aren’t buying magazines, either because they have lost jobs or all living costs (rents, school fees, DSTV, food, talktime etc) have gone up by 300%. This is PF’s legacy.
A very good informative magazine closed due to among other reasons the Zambian poor reading culture When I met a fellow dinosaur we were talking about the death of Prince and this young Salesman in a Zambeef butchery asked who was Prince.