STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA On 1st April, it was announced that ZESCO had stopped collecting TV levy on behalf of ZNBC. However, ZESCO said ZNBC did not communicate that the power utility company had to stop collecting the levy on its behalf. News Diggers reported that:“ZESCO spokesperson Henry Kapata says the utility continued to collect TV levy after April 1, because there had been no communication from ZNBC instructing them to stop. He added that ZESCO management was in talks with the national service broadcaster to resolve the matter. “We were supposed to be receiving a letter either yesterday or today. All I can say is that there is a memorandum of understanding between ZESCO and ZNBC and all the money we have been collecting goes to ZNBC. When we started this partnership there was an official correspondence to us as ZESCO. And so we have been having chats with them to resolve this issue. We are simply an agent of ZNBC, we will delete ourselves from collecting that money,” said Kapata. “Your question is why have you continued collecting after April 1st 2018 and my answer is that there was some memorandum of understanding between two institutions and since the Minister has made that pronouncement very clear, it means that ZNBC should be on the way with that correspondence. Infact, you can do well to also call ZNBC to ask”. On 16th April, ZNBC suspended an editor and reporter on grounds on a wrong picture caption. ZNBC aired a news clip in which Botswana President was speaking with a caption reading “Botswana of President”14. The Zambia Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) has suspended its sub-editor Barbara Malilwe and reporter Mark Ziligone for allegedly putting wrong captions on a news story featuring Botswana‟s President Mokogweetsi Masisi. 14 News Diggers - ZNBC Suspends Subeditor, Reporter Over Wrong Picture Captions – 16th April, 2018 15