By Mubanga Mubanga
Information and Media minister Cornelius Mweetwa says Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia should not expect the government to sit and hero worship lies all in the name of media freedom.
And Mweetwa said he was not going to retract the statement he made in Parliament that the government would be left with no choice, but come up with statutory regulation of the media.
Speaking during a press briefing yesterday at Government Complex in Lusaka, Mweetwa said MISA Zambia should first castigate The Mast Newspaper, a media organisation he described as “liars” before lecturing him on press freedom.
“lf it is not personnel; they should first admonish this Mast Newspaper, which has lost direction. Many of your media houses colleagues are good people and I know that. There are those who are misunderstood sometimes, we know. But when you lie like The Mast lies, they should not have gone ahead to say, the government wants to gag,” Mweetwa said. “They should have rendered an apology to the nation, because the statement they gave was very divisive to a nation and we the government cannot sit and begin to hero worship liars in the name of media freedom.”
Mweetwa said MISA should not promote yellow journalism by supporting media houses that misconduct themselves like” KBN TV and The Mast.”
He added that he was not going to retract the statement he made in Parliament that the government would be left with no choice, but come up with statutory regulation of the media.
“We expect MISA that when a media house has misconducted itself, the same way The Mast misconducted itself, the same way KBN misconduct itself, they should be the first to render advice so that if they want to talk to us, they will stand on some higher moral grounds,” Mweetwa said. “Let me place on record therefore, that I am not retracting the statement I made, with this kind of misconduct by some, a few media houses like The Mast Newspaper.”
He however, said the government was not going to gag the media, but would gag liars.
He stressed that the media should not be given extra rights to misinform the nation, saying no one should be allowed to have limitless powers.
But KBN, who were represented by station CEO Kennedy Mambwe and station manager innocent Phiri did not take kindly to Mweetwa’s accusations.
Phiri who had waited for the question and answer session, asked Mweetwa what he meant when he said KBN was misinforming the nation.
But the question seemed to have upset Mweetwa, who repeated what he had said earlier.
He described KBN as the “number one TV liar” in the country.
Mweetwa also announced that UPND had appointed a new media team.
Consultant Mark Simuwe has been appointed as media director, to be deputised by Sikwindi Situla, while Oliver Shalala has taken the position of Simuweas media consultant.
