This was due in part to the brief detention of two visiting international journalists and confiscation of their equipment, as well as ongoing threats to regulate the media. In a disturbing development, a Cabinet memorandum had been issued to direct government advertising and information primarily to state-owned media. The NMT, which had provided assistance to the EFN to redraft the Code of Ethics and Conduct, commended this initiative to strengthen regulation and enhance journalistic professionalism. While membership of the EFN was voluntarily, the NMT called on all media to join up and commit themselves to adherence to the Code in order to maintain high standards in Namibian journalism on all platforms. While to many it is undeniable that the quality of journalism has deteriorated over the last few years, this is not unique to Namibia, rather, it is a global occurrence that can be ascribed to a number of factors. In Namibia’s case, it can be argued that the journalism training institutions do not provide a sufficient number of graduates to staff newsrooms. When they do, some media houses unfortunately do not provide graduates with in-house training and mentorship by senior journalists. Modern-day journalism is even more deadline driven and stressful than that of yesteryear. Social media has both negatives and positives. On the one hand it has elevated citizen journalism to a whole new level, but on the down side, it has heralded the arrival of ‘fake news’ as it is termed, which have combined to place undue pressure on mainstream media to break the news. In doing so, they fail 82 So This is Democracy? 2017 to do proper verification of information and at times fail the objectivity test. Some media houses went as far as to publish press statements word for word. In November, life-threatening violence was sparked at a Katutura home when a live-caller announced on the Otjiherero radio station that the occupant had children’s body parts in his refrigerator. This unverified information spread fast on social media, and within two hours hundreds of people were in front of the home demanding that the occupant hand himself over. Riot police dispersed the crowd with teargas and rubber bullets. Roadblocks and traffic jams added to the chaos. These were challenges that have to be urgently addressed by the media sector. Stakeholders and citizens must hold the media accountable at all times, which is one of the best ways to improve their professionalism and ethics. Further, the media and stakeholders must provide media and information literacy (MIL) and Digital Literacy. MIL and digital literacy have become critical skills required in this information age where fake news is spread across media platforms as truth. ACCESS TO INFORMATION Renowned for its high degree of media freedom and equally lauded for the explicit guarantee of media freedom and freedom of expression enshrined in Chapter 3 of the Constitution, Namibia’s downfall is the absence of a similar constitutional provision of access to information. It should be mentioned here that in 2016 civil society organisations, under the umbrella of the Access to Information (ACTION) Namibia Coalition, worked with MICT to design an Access to In-