STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA “government will step in with statutory regulation if the media fails to come up with a selfregulatory framework after three months because government cannot leave a vacuum where the media is free to do whatever they like without any regulation and adherence to journalism ethics.” Similar sentiments were echoed by Minister of Information and Broadcasting Minister Dora Siliya on 20th February 2019, in the Mast Newspaper calling for an introduction of an institution to regulate journalism. The justification for this move was that government was determined to combat bad journalism. She argued that press freedom and bad journalism are not the same thing. The Mast newspaper further reported that the Minister disclosed that the government had reached a conclusion that self-regulation was the answer to professional standards. The justification for this was that government, through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services, was interested with the help of stakeholders to formulate a bill to “establish a media association through which media practitioners and media owners shall regulate themselves.” The Minister stated that: “The government wants the media practitioners to regulate themselves in the same manner that the legal practitioners, medical practitioners, engineers and many other professionals are regulating themselves. So, we already have a standard. The ministry is not proposing anything new in this country!” She added that: “The ministry is now resolved that the media practitioners must also regulate themselves by establishing this professional body that will regulate the conduct of the media practitioners and the media institutions in the country.” The calls for regulation of the media by government were strongly opposed by veteran politician Vernon Mwaanga, who on 31st March, 2019 was quoted by the Daily Mail Newspaper under a heading “Be Careful With What You Are Doing, VJ Warns Kasolo Over Media Regulation”. 8