towards journalists or being passive when it comes to the defence of journalists from wanton attacks by members of the public. This trend if not curbed soon continues to undermine the confidence levels among journalists to competently conduct their work. MISA therefore called upon to act as allies of the media ads both their work is to serve the citizens of the nation. It is therefore prudent for the Zambia Police Service to act in a professional manner and defend the rights and freedoms of the journalists as expected and not play complicity with the aggressors and enemies of the profession. In reaction to the strong worded statement issued by MISA, Police later summoned the Chairperson and interrogated her over the same. Clearly, these are perilous times for the journalism profession and its advocates in Zambia. 3.2. Economic and Technological environment The economic and technological environment for the media sector was somewhat a continuation of the challenges witnessed in the previous quarters of 2016. There were some positives breaking the trend on the technology curve but largely a negative trend continued on the economic front. One of the major economic challenges that media faced, similar to other sectors in the economy was the depreciation and continued instability of the local currency, the Kwacha against major convertibles such as the United States dollar. The outlook has been made worse by the continued gloomy economic outlook premised on less and less liquidity on the market while the production costs of most media products is projected to continue rising. This has a direct effect on the amount of revenue that most media houses rely on from various business houses through low rates of advertising and other business ventures. From the responses by respondents on this subject, it was apparent that their accounts were badly hit with these developments. According to one respondent, “The economy has dwindled, people are in serious poverty and money is difficult to find. For us in newspaper business, it is even difficult to produce and sell newspapers to people who are barely surviving” 9 Another challenge that media faced was the continued erratic electricity supply that hugely affected the efficient operations of many media houses. This meant most of them had to revert to using alternative sources of energy, popular among them generator sets to keep their operations afloat. To this end, compounded by low revenue levels, most of those interviewed said this pushed up the running costs against their bottom lines. “…the biggest challenge for the media is the continued 9 Misheck Wangwe, Post Newspaper, Chief Reporter, Copperbelt Province 13