By Mubanga Mubanga
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia says it does not support the Zambia Institute of Journalism Bill (ZIJ) because it is only targeting to regulate journalists.
Last week, stakeholders in the media rejected the Zambia Institute of Journalism Bill and statutory media regulation which was being spearheaded by the Media Liaison Committee (MLC)
Acting chairperson of the committee Felistus Chipako called for the swift enactment of the bill, emphasising its potential to enhance professionalism and accountability among journalists.
This was followed by the insistence by ommittee member Enerst Chanda, who is also Ministry of Transport and Logistics principal public relations officer, that the committee would not back out from ensuring that the bill was enacted into law.
In an interview on Wednesday, on the proposed bill, chapter chairperson Lorraine Mwanza said the bill was only looking at regulating journalism, as opposed to regulating the general media atmosphere.
Mwanza added that the bill was biased towards journalism.
“Because, the journalism you are targeting is just a few individuals or a profession. But if you say communicators it is wide right? Because if a PR person is found wanting, they will say, ‘this bill doesn’t affect me, l am not a journalist’,” Mwanza said. “Even a blogger, they say ‘no this bill doesn’t concern me. Even if I make a wrong thing, l make a wrong decision, I am not a journalist.’ So when they say Journalism bill what do they mean?”
Mwanza said MISA supported anyone who wanted to communicate whether trained or not, regardless of them being journalists or not because they had a natural inclination towards communicating through writing or spoken words.
“Yes, they are not journalists, that is what we support as MISA. This is the reason we have always refused to come up with something, which is just back to a few individuals,” said Mwanza said. “Us MISA we support anybody who wants to become a content creator in a good way. So we want them to have access to information.”
She further said even though MISA was part of the group that proposed media regulations in Zambia some years ago, the journalism bill which had been presented was not the one they participated in because it had been refined.
