STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA In a statement released, Tuesday, the US media giant announced an expansion of their globallyrenowned programme after being positively received by media practitioners on the African continent. The paper further reported: “The BMIA today announced the expansion of its FJT programme to Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania, joining Ghana and Zambia where training programmes launched earlier this year. This unique educational offering will support the advancement of financial journalism and contribute to economic development on the continent. The expansion of the training programme to five new countries in Africa follows the success of the programme in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, where 568 delegates from 13 countries have graduated to-date,” Bloomberg stated in a press release issued from its New York headquarters. In similar lines of promotion and advancement of specialised reporting, on 8th May, 2019 The Daily Nation Publication carried a headline, “media win kudos over health coverage” the paper reported that: “The Medicines Research and Access platform has commended the media in Zambia for taking interest in health reporting”. According the association, health news sells as much as other news genres depending on how the content is packaged. The association emphasised that specialised reporting too can sell just as much as politics and other fields like sports and fashion. This was an interesting debate in the quarter as it showed how big specialised reporting was/is to the development of the media. 6.0 Fake News Fake news is news, stories or hoaxes created to deliberately misinform or deceive readers. Fake news stories are usually created to either influence people’s views, push a political agenda or cause confusion. This is often a profitable business for online publishers. In the period under review, government expressed concern with the levels of fake news. During the inauguration ceremony of his Special Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations the President, Mr. Edgar Lungu advised his new officer to tackle the problem of “Fake news”. The Daily Nation newspaper on 14th June, 2019 carried a headline, “tackle fake news, Lungu tells Chipampe” The paper reported that: 29