This has severally been rejected as a form of media regulation in Zambia as chronicled by Ndawana, Knowles and Vaughan (2021)11. Co-regulation on the other hand is a hybrid of the two preceding forms of media regulation. In co-regulation, media practitioners and stakeholders come together to agree on standards as well as other industry benchmarks. They (practitioners) determine the content of the regulatory instrument to be used and government only comes in to facilitate the enactment of the Bill and other supporting processes without altering the contents of the Bill (and Code of Ethics) promulgated by the media practitioners. The process is also couched in a strongly protected framework as a safeguard. While these are broad models, minor variations do exist; it is, therefore, important to ensure the process is in line with generally accepted standards to avoid instituting Statutory Regulation couched in a misnomer of “statutoryself regulation”, as noted by some of the discussants and practitioners surveyed. ‘Statutory-Self regulation” is, thus, simply statutory regulation with a semblance or “smoke screen” of independence when in fact not. Ideal media regulation must be based on certain principles for it to contribute to media development. Firstly, media regulation must contribute to freedom of the press and other media. This should be done by ensuring that the provisions of a law on media regulation abide by international instruments such as Article 10 (2) of the African Principles of Freedom of Expression Declaration12 which holds that the right to express oneself through the media by practising journalism shall not be subject to undue restrictions. Other international instruments of relevance include the African Democracy Charter, the Windhoek Declaration and the SADC Protocol. Secondly, media regulation must guarantee independence which means being free from governmental, political and economic control or commercial interference. As such, media regulation must not only focus on freedom from 11 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23743670.2021.1939749 12 https://www.achpr.org/public/Document/file/English/Declaration%20of%20Principles%20on%20Freedom%20 of%20Expression_ENG_2019.pdf 17