STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA affected areas and the country must accept and support the role bestowed on the ZPS and other security agencies to restore peace, law and order, stability and normalcy in Chingola and other parts of the Copper Belt. In other words, there has to a clear channel of communication in the affected areas by the law enforcement agencies to avoid confusion It is therefore important that media are equally accorded the necessary protection in the conduct of their functions particularly in such situations where they support the authorities in information dissemination. For example, on 8th January, a ZNBC news crew was attacked and had its vehicle windows smashed by residents who ran amok and onto the streets in protest against the suspected ritual killings18. This, equally, was the case in the gassing incidents which were eventual successors of the spate of ritual killings in the quarter under review. This similarly caused civil unrest which degenerated to unmanageable levels which prompted the deployment of troops country-wide as well as restriction of movement in certain parts of the country and heightened patrols. On the social front, this affected journalists and inhibited their work, which often requires interactions with the public and sources of news. Given the pronounced security situation, there was also restriction on information dissemination regarding the anti-gassing operations conducted by authorities, despite immense media interest. It is, therefore, important for authorities to devise modalities of timely information dissemination during such times, despite the myriad of laws granting them absolute discretion as this tends to limit the role of the media and the public’s right to know. Some of the journalists interviewed bemoaned the lack of security accorded to journalists and the impact this had on their work. Sipilisiwe Ncube, a News Diggers Newspaper reporter stated: The gassing incidences affected my work as a journalist in that news collection was only limited to areas where one was well known. As 18 https://www.znbc.co.zm/news/chingola-in-smoke/ pg. 20