Trust in media has been affected by recent criticisms of reporting standards, and restrictions on the freedom of journalists to practise their craft, with some saying they have to self-censor for their own safety.2 There are increasing calls for transparency about how news organisations go about their business, which speaks directly to the recommendation of this study that editorial policies be clearly accessible on news sites, as well as management and ownership structures. 3. Methodology and research process CfA conducted the study using research from our own internal CivicSignal research analysts, alongside a survey of senior editors affiliated with the Zambia chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Zambia), and held a roundtable discussion with other senior editors. MISA Zambia is a non-profit organisation that promotes media independence, pluralism and freedom of expression and its members include individual journalists, editors, academics and newsrooms. The desktop research covered a sample of 50 organisations in Zambia. The organisations were selected based on their number of viewers, listeners and followers, or high levels of online engagement. The study was conducted between January and March 2023 and included online, print, radio and television. We included only entities that have a newsroom and publish their news at a regular interval. These newsrooms fall across the spectrum of state-owned, privately owned and community media organisations. The objective of this study was to establish whether news organisations in Zambia have clear editorial and management policies, and whether the audiences of these news organisations could easily access this information on the prime publishing platforms. We used both quantitative and qualitative study methods by sending out surveys to news editors and managers. The CivicSignal MediaData team also checked the websites of the selected news organisations for the presence of the following policies: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 2 Privacy policy Copyright declaration Contact page Corrections page or a linked corrections policy Complaints page Ownership of the media organisation Management structure List of editorial staff Public facing editorial guidelines Ethics policy Media self-censorship in Zambia, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Caroline Katotobwe, 2022 Cite this report as: Mwale et al, 'Transparency and trust: newsroom policies in Zambia', African Data and Democracy Observatory, April 2023. . 4 4