Print media There are currently three leading daily newspapers in Zambia: The Post, Zambia Daily Mail, and The Times of Zambia. There are also a couple of other weekly and some irregular tabloid newspapers that are being published. During the 2008 presidential elections, The Post was perhaps the only one that suffered the most threats from the government followed by the Zambia Daily Mail. This may also be attributed to the highly anti-government stance it took in its coverage of elections and an apparent open support for one opposition candidate, Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front. In terms of fair coverage, all the main newspapers were seriously guilty of open bias towards their preferred candidates, with the government-owned media clearly favouring the ruling party candidate. Public media journalists also faced threats of being fired if they did not publish articles in support of the ruling MMD party. The Post suffered threats of closure if the ruling party won the election, and the paper’s reporters suffered numerous incidents of harassment from ruling party cadres and party officials. Besides media freedom violations that characterised the election period, the sector continued to face economic hardships, such as the high cost of production. A number of private newspapers continued to struggle because of this as well as inadequate capital and high taxes on inputs. The cost of producing a print publication was still high compared to printing the same or better work in South Africa. As a result some newspapers such as The New Nation newspaper and The Weekly Angel battled to print editions consistently. The New Nation has resorted to going online. The cost of newspaper production has restricted circulation of the newspapers and disadvantages them from income on advertising because the corporate companies and many other organisations demand wider circulation. Despite the hardships, new publications, such as the privately owned Bliss magazine, and the Christian magazines Billionaire Capsules and Harvest magazines came on the scene. Another development is the establishment of The Post newspaper’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) project that has started providing internet services. The Zambia Daily Mail also readied itself to acquire new printing equipment and had managed to raise some funds towards the venture. Also noteworthy was the Zambia Printing Company’s purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that they indicated could print ballot papers of required standard. Projections for 2009 There are some indications that the ZNBC and IBA Acts of 2002 and FOI Bill could record some movement after so much inertia. The National Constitutional Conference (NCC) presents an opportunity for the media to have favourable provisions in the revised constitution. This is because the Human Rights Committee of the NCC under which the media associations’ are represented will be sitting in 2009 to review the recommendations on media in the Mungomba Draft Constitution. This draft constitution contains progressive media provisions and it is hoped that these provisions will be maintained. Moreover, the media association’s unity of purpose presents an opportunity for the media to address the issue of self-regulation in a more holistic manner. This could spell the beginning of a more inclusive and strengthened self-regulatory media body, because the media associations seem geared to remodel the Media Council of Zambia (MECOZ) and make it more effective. This move could avert proposed statutory media regulation. So This Is Democracy? 2008 -114- Media Institute of Southern Africa