a. Availability of newsroom policies The availability and accessibility of newsroom policies is essential for promoting transparency, accountability, and ethical journalism in news organisations. Transparency International said4 that 'the lack of media ownership transparency, especially the lack of information on media companies' beneficial owners; non-transparent financing; and the substantial increase in non-transparent use of both state and private advertising' is one of the issues threatening integrity in media. Our study found that most media organisations, despite having certain policies in place, did not make them publicly available. The data indicated that 30 out of the 50 newsrooms we used as the sample did not have active websites, but had an active Facebook presence. The two newsrooms that had the most policies published were Makanday and Diggers Newspaper with eight and seven of the checked policies available respectively. The Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), the country's public broadcaster, had the ownership structure, privacy policy, complaints page, and contact details published on their site, while a community radio station Radio Chikaya listed the ownership and management structure, editorial staff, and contact information on its website. b. Ownership and management structure policy These are the most common and publicly available policies in newsrooms at 34% and 24% respectively. Interestingly, the majority of newsrooms said in the survey that their ownership information was published on their newsroom's Facebook page but none of this information existed on their facebook page. A senior editor observed at a roundtable discussion event that lack of declaration of media ownership leaves media organisations open to suspicion especially when they publish potentially sensitive investigations. It also makes them vulnerable to manipulation by either politicians or other foreign influences. Moreover, journalists in these media organisations could be under the editorial influence of their owners or could self-censor when reports conflict with their owners' interests. 4 Good practices to ensure transparency and integrity, Transparency International, May 2016 Cite this report as: Mwale et al, 'Transparency and trust: newsroom policies in Zambia', African Data and Democracy Observatory, April 2023. . 6 6