STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA Events that had made up articles under ‘burning issues’ category during the third quarter somehow faded out and so the media looked elsewhere for lead stories. Developments regarding conflict resolution and dialogue between the Republican President Mr Edgar Lungu and United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Mr Hakainde Hichilema were not particularly significant. If anything, despite the diplomatic involvement of the Commonwealth Secretariat, the process did not attract much coverage by the media during the three-month period. The switch-over from analogue to digital migration by televisions stations in the country on 1 October 2017 passed without much fanfare partly because the switch-over did not cover the whole country. There are parts of Zambia that still require infrastructure and equipment to facilitate the migration. It is for this reason that Mr Godfrey Malama, Permanent Secretary, in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services explained that the digital migration would be accomplished in mid-2018. In the meantime, Parliament passed the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and Independent Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill 2017 to transfer collection and accounting of television levy from the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation to subscriber licence management system with effect from 1 January 2018. Incidents of threats, intimidation and harassment of media practitioners and media houses continued unabated during the quarter with no lasting solution in sight. Unfortunately, the public is increasingly getting used to suspecting that cadres – alleged or genuine – belonging to the ruling party are behind these incidents. For playing its role, at least MISA Zambia has closely monitored various incidents, reported through its media alerts and courageously written to authorities of the ruling party, the Patriotic Front, drawing their attention with a view to remedying the situation. A “Sunday Interview” of Mr Hichilema, leader of UPND, aired on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation television attracted a series of remarkably undeserved praises for the national broadcaster for doing the interview. The interview was a seeming favour, when the reality was that the ZNBC was merely discharging its routine responsibility attached to any genuine public service broadcaster. 6