State of the media in Southern Africa - 2003 There would be a Code of Ethics to which all media practitioners should be bound and appropriate sanctions meted out by the self-regulation bodies. The policy should allow for the formation of a media workers trade union. This comes in the wake of numerous expulsions of staff from Public Eye and MoAfrika amidst claims that some of them had been involved in embezzlement of funds. Both media establishments had expelled up to 17 staff. The figure is inclusive of radio presenters, journalists and administrative staff. Though MoAfrika Editor Candi Ramainoane believes the Lesotho media to be too small to accommodate a trade union, workers’ rights and those of the employers can only be protected in an environment where there are workers’ unions and employers’ groupings. Government in 2003 attempted to inform the public of the functions of different ministries through a series of state run radio and television broadcasts hosted by ministers. The Minister of Finance, Dr. Timothy Thahane went to the National Convention Centre (NCC) after delivering the budget speech and asked those present to ask him any question on the speech. All ministers avoided taking their explanations to the private independent radio stations. The scramble for places in the small Lesotho TV studio and the many questions thrown at the ministers indicated the hunger for information Basotho (people of Lesotho) have. It remains to be seen whether Dr. Thahane will make good on his promise to set up information centres with television screens and telecommunications technology to allow rural folk to participate in the inquest of the 2004 budget. Government’s misplaced belief in its Public Relations Officers will have to be reviewed. Not all government ministries have PROs and for those that do have them, these act more as buffer zones against journalists on the quest for information than as agents of information sharing. Equally, it has to be taken into consideration that people’s information needs differ and cannot all be addressed by PROs. In Lesotho, certain media are favoured with information while others are denied access. South African media, especially SABC TV journalists and Lesotho’s police newspaper journalists are favoured with information against those from the local private media. Local journalists were denied access to engagements by the British Princess Royal during her visit in 2003 and reporters of Mopheme newspaper were denied information surrounding the death of army Colonel, Clifford Polisa. In the case of the former, the South African media were allowed entry to the royalty events and in the latter, the police newspaper that week published a full expose of the Polisa story. Some government ministries and parastatals officials do not start events unless a Lesotho TV crew is in attendance. An unpalatable event in 2003 was the stoning of journalist Thabo Thakalekoala and his stablemate in Mopheme, T_episo Mcina by a marauding mob of street vendors angry at being forced to vacate city pavements where they peddled their wares. The Lesotho media fraternity welcomed among its ranks Harvest FM radio owned by the Harvest FM Trust, an evangelical movement. The other new kid on the block was Mosotho newspaper, the Sesotho language sister of Public Eye owned by Voice Multimedia. Its formation was based purely on business considerations to produce a full-colour Sesotho language newspaper. All in all, the Lesotho media landscape did not improve or regress much in 2003. Some promises have been made and performance on them shall have to be monitored rigorously in the years to come. So This Is Democracy? 2003 32 Media Institute of Southern Africa