THE ZAMBIAN MEDIA, A FAILED PROJECT. With the presidential election less than a month away, people across Zambia are taking sides on which candidate they should vote for. This is expected because people have a democratic right to make a decision as to who should preside over their affairs. The media plays a critical role in providing a level playing ground for all political contenders to sale their manifestos and plans for the nation. During an election period like this, there is a lot of confusion and electorates are left in the valley of uncertainty. Politicians fell to distinguish between Policy, Political Propaganda and mere Political Rhetoric. As a result the messages they send to the electorate is one of confusion and illusion. Rhetoric is defined as “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques”. But my Favourite definition is the one below “Language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect, but which is often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content”. This is the prowess of most of our politicians. They are very good at making empty promises that are not supported by policy and our people fall prey to them. The nurses are a good example of what political rhetoric can do. The constitution is another glaring example of what political rhetoric not backed by policy can be, it’s like faith without works. Propaganda is defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”. It’s clear enough and we don’t need to look for an alternative definition. Our politicians thrive on Propaganda and it’s heartbreaking to see most of our people believing them and giving then a vote on this account. Politicians in this country will make you believe it’s possible to provide free education for everyone, free medical care for every one and they can even promise you a Thousand Kwacha for every person on Zambian land. Policy, there are thousands of definitions but my Favourite is from the Cambridge Dictionary; a set of ideas or a plan of what to do in particular situations that has been agreed officially by a group of people, a business organization, a government, or a political party”. Policy is plans, strategy, proposed action, blueprint, approach, scheme, stratagem, programme, schedule, code, system, guidelines, intentions, notions, theory, line, position, stance, and attitude. In other words policy is written and enshrined to be followed by organized people or institutions. When politicians stand on a platform, they are supposed to be talking about policy. What they will do to improve people’s livelihoods. Having digressed to make these distinctions, my purpose is simply to show that the media being the fourth estate has a role to ensure that politicians do not spend their time feeding the electorate with either political rhetoric or political propaganda but expounding policies. The challenge we face today is that the media has become active participants in the political arena abdicating their watchdog role. The current scenario in Zambia is worrisome and calls for urgent attention. We have media outlets that have out rightly endorsed certain candidates and have surrendered their watchdog role and consequently becoming partisan. The environment we have created is a very dangerous one. We have media outlets that have vowed to never support certain parties regardless. We also have media outlets that have vowed to finish certain candidates regardless. The online media has become so partisan its impossible to believe whatever you read from there. What makes online media thrive and credible is its fairness, accuracy, truthfulness and impartial reporting. Unfortunately this is an upside script in Zambia. People use social media to gossip and character assassinate each other. Tribalism has become the order of the day and very bad seeds of dissident are been sawn everyday. Sadly even campaign managers and media managers for the major political parties have fallen prey to this cancerous worm. The worst thing for independent observers is that, its almost impossible to believe media reports these days. You have to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Politicians have become puppets with no principles as long as they can get into public office. They lie with impunity and the compromised media can not challenge them on their lies. I have heard so much rhetoric and propaganda during this election and very little if not no policy at all. The role of the media is to provide a platform for policy discourse and discussion that provides citizens with an opportunity to make informed decisions. The genesis of all this lies in our past. Journalists in public and private media have been abused and used by politicians to achieve their own goals. We have seen senior journalists from both public and private media been appointed to jobs in the foreign service as a reward for their favorable reporting in the lead upto the elections. Even in this election there are a number of journalists who have been paid by certain political parties to report favorably about some political parties. This has left journalists thinking, like politicians, you need to strategically align yourself. The end result is that we have a media fraternity that is so compromised it’s difficult to provide critical analysis and help the nation make informed decisions. While politicians are busy trotting around the country, have the journalists asked the aspiring politicians what they will do to improve their work environment? Where is the Access to Information Bill? When will the draconian constitution which impedes on journalists be repealed and replaced? When will the media be treated with dignity? When will the media get decent salaries commensurate with the hours they put in? Ladies and gentlemen those are the issues we should be raising with our politicians. I believe the practice of media outlets openly supporting politicians is unethical and violates the media’s function as a political watchdog. One of the most important purposes of media is monitoring the government. Newspapers, TV, Radio stations and websites help keep the inner workings of government visible. Media exposes corruption and keeps politicians under a microscope so the public always knows what is going on. To be an effective watchdog, media must remain unbiased. It is impossible to do this when entire institutions are endorsing politicians. When a company states its support of a candidate, it is establishing a political preference instead of remaining neutral. A newspaper Radio or TV station automatically gives a candidate positive exposure by endorsing them. Unless the organization can give the same exposure to the opposing candidate, it isn’t reporting fairly. As journalists, we follow a common ethical guideline of forfeiting our right to publicly get involved in politics. The public has to be able to trust us to report fairly and honestly. The authoritarian approach of telling readers what to think isn’t ethical, as opposed to providing them with the information needed to make their own decisions. It is difficult to foster that trust when the public knows which political party an organization or a reporter favors. If that reporter has to cover an event for a party they don’t support, readers may be suspicious of whether the article was written without bias. If individual journalists must remain neutral in the public eye, the same standard should be followed by media organizations as a whole. Instead of being wary of one reporter’s political leanings, readers must be skeptical of every political article published by a paper that endorses a candidate. As a media scholar, i believe it is unethical for media outlets to endorse political candidates. We try our hardest to give candidates equal coverage and find opportunities to report on all aspects of politics fairly. I believe that all news resources should strive to remain unbiased and stay away from openly endorsing political candidates. The public relies on newspapers, TV and radio stations and news websites for unbiased coverage to learn about what is going on in government. If these sources do not remain neutral in political preference, the organizations cannot be trusted to remain unbiased in reporting. We must define the dotted line between telling the reader what to think and giving them the necessary materials to allow them to make their own decisions. Zambia is bigger that all of us! Let’s remain ethical and professional. Our job is a noble and delicate one. God Bless the Journalists who strive to do their best every day.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 16:44:10 +0000