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to journalist found wanting for flouting
journalism ethics.
This mechanism is preferred because
it is less susceptible to manipulation
from the three wings of government,
which the media watch over. With this
in mind, the Zambian media was forced
to register ZAMEC under the Companies Act as opposed to the Societies Act,
which requires the line Ministry, in this
case the Ministry of Information, to endorse its registration. However, while it
was registered, it could not begin operations as the then government threatened to pull out all state-owned media if
made operational without government’s
views being taken into consideration. The
proposal of the government was that the
self-regulatory body needed to be under
an act of parliament like it is for the Law
Association of Zambia. While ZAMEC
was launched in July 2012, it is still not
operational because its articles of association were not in line with the law it was
registered under. This meant that the Articles of Association had to be reviewed
while a board, which had been launched,
was dissolved. This was to ensure that
articles of association were in line with
the Act under which ZAMEC was registered. At the close of 2012, the review
of the constitution had reached an ad-



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vanced stage meaning that the operationalisation of ZAMEC was also at the
brink of the horizon. The government,
however, did indicate during its launch
that if the media failed to establish an
effective media regulatory body, it could
be forced to initiate measures to address
the gap regarding to media professionalism oversight.

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2012 also saw Zambia launch mobile
television by a mobile and landline telephone provider Zambia Telecommunications Company (ZAMTEL). Viewers could
now watch ZNBC and Muvi Television on
their mobile phones.
The subscribers could access such
services using Android-powered and
third generation (3G) capable mobile
handsets.
Further, the strength of online publications, such as The Zambian Watchdog, grew and became news leaders for
most of the media. As of December 2012,
Zambia had over 100 registered bloggers
while online media kept on increasing
but few, such as the Lusaka Times, continued to be sources of news especially
to news consumers with access to inter-

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