State of the media in Southern Africa - 2003 MACRA Director General Evans Namanja said in June last year: “News is supposed to be for the general public and not a particular community. By broadcasting news, the community radio stations are hijacking the role of public broadcasters, such as the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi (TVM)”. Despite the decrease in alerts from Zambia, the same kinds of media freedom violations as reported over many years by MISA continue to occur. An unusual flurry of exciting media legal reform developments in 2002, however, ground to a halt in 2003. During 2002 three media bills were tabled in Parliament - the result of joint campaigns between MISA-Zambia, PAZA (the Press Association of Zambia that mainly represents state owned journalists and associations), the Association of Senior Journalists and the Zambia Media Women’s Association. These media associations lobbied opposition MP’s from various parties, who numerically now constitute a combined majority in the Parliament, and succeeded in forcing the Parliament to consider a Freedom of Information bill, a new broadcasting bill and an Independent Broadcasting Authority bill. In a cynical move to ride the wave of public popularity, the government appropriated these bills from the civil society and opposition MP’s that had researched and crafted them, and tabled them in Parliament. Much their content, however, was culled from the bills prepared by the media civil society and opposition MP’s, although important aspects of the civil society bills were also excised and replaced by content more palatable to the government. An IBA Act and a ZNBC Act were passed into law during 2003. The problem, however, is that the government is not implementing them. The IBA Act removes the Minister of Information’s regulatory powers in terms of awarding broadcasting licenses to non-state broadcasters, which will instead be performed by a publicly nominated board ratified by Parliament. Delays in the ratification of this board means that the Minister of Information so far continues to control this function. The government refused to surrender its right of licensing the ZNBC, but the new ZNBC Act does require the state broadcaster to transform into a public broadcaster serving the diversity of political views and interests across the spectrum. It also enables the government to charge the public a TV license fee. Additional funds are urgently required to refurbish the antiquated equipment and facilities of the state broadcaster. In practice, however, the IBA Act has not yet taken effect and the ZNBC has not changed and still functions as the voice of the government. The Freedom of Information bill reached the second reading stage in Parliament, but was then suddenly withdrawn by the government around concerns of its implications on ‘the war against terrorism’. It will supposedly be tabled again in an amended form in the next session of Parliament. The ‘New Deal administration of laws and not men’ of President Levy Mwanawasa also stands accused of not matching rhetoric with action. During October 2003 he called on the state owned media not to flatter the government and to report ‘constructive criticism’ objectively. He also guaranteed the jobs of editors in the state owned media should they publish and broadcast content critical of his administration. A few weeks later the television service of the state owned Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) banned a live morning show reviewing the headlines of the daily and weekly media presented by two independent journalists. To add insult to injury, recommendations emanating from the Constitution Review Commission and a national Indaba convened by the government during 2003, makes no mention of the role of the media or freedom of expression. The civil society media coalition in Zambia has nevertheless performed a sterling role and no doubt will redouble its efforts to grease the wheels of media reformation during this year. The alerts for 2003 reveal the emergence of new themes of professional importance to journalSo This Is Democracy? 2003 10 Media Institute of Southern Africa