STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA It has been argued that stakeholders are casting doubts on the authenticity of the content of the draft bill owing to the fact that there has been a lot of back and forth pronouncements on the bill. For example, in the first quarter of 2019 the Lusaka Times online Publication carried a headline, “Access To Information Bill will not be presented in the next sitting of Parliament” and attributed the statement to Information and Broadcasting Permanent Secretary, Chanda Kasolo saying that the Access to Information Bill will not be presented in the next sitting of Parliament which opens on Tuesday 14th February, 2019. His justification for the move was that government wanted to ensure that caution is taken especially on security matters before the bill is enacted into law. Mr. Kasolo added that the bill will adequately be prepared so that there are no lacunas. The PS’s statement came before the Bill was presented to Cabinet and stakeholders cast doubt on the process owing to the flip-flopping stance taken by government. The bill as of 25th October, 2019 awaits to be taken to parliament for debate. Meanwhile, on 13th August 2019, The Daily Mail Newspaper Publication carried a headline, “Malupenga tips media” where the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government urged the media not to abuse their power to inform the masses by misleading the public with fake news. According to Mr. Amos Malupenga the Media should use their power to communicate to tell people the truth and disseminate information that promotes equity. The sentiments by Mr. Malupenga were expressed during the re-launch of a ZNBC TV2’s programme dubbed “My Community” a programme aimed at providing a platform where members of the public interact with civic leaders and keep them accountable for service delivery. During the programme, the PS stated: “The Media should guard against abuse of information power so as not to mislead the nation. People take what they see in the media as gospel truth, that’s why there is need to ensure what is taken out is factual.” Mr Malupenga said the media should disseminate authentic and verified information so that the public can make informed decisions. He said the media should be innovative and come up with ways of defeating fake news, especially in the wake of social media. The debate on the media disseminating authentic and verified information to keep the public informed cannot be complete minus a discussion on the need for the ATI Bill to be enacted into law so as to accord the media leverage to access information without any curtailment. 10