Once upon a time The Post Newspapers used to line up a cadre of high level columnists that had people looking forward to buying the then independent publication.
Many of those individuals were authorities on subjects they wrote about and were allowed to independently express their opinions unfettered.
But that only lasted for as long as owner Fred M’membe’s independence lasted. He traded the little credibility left in his ego for a lot of pieces of silver. What matters to him now is not professional journalism but how many trucks are pounding the Great North and Kafue Roads as courier for Konkola Copper Mines and other government agencies.
A look back at some of the names that drove the sales in what now has turned out to be a Patriotic Front propaganda machinery. It’s readers are truly suffering from the mediocrity of the once revered publication.
Azwell Banda: cultivated a huge following through his political commentary that used to come out on Tuesday in The Post and had free hand on almost any subject and personality.
But once the mighy Fred M’membe started flirting with Levy Mwanawasa, things started falling apart as occasionally subjects could be dropped or the article could not be published. Being the believer in press freedom he is, he eventually had to opt out to save his integrity.
Roy Clarke: Still the number one king of satire and had such a huge impact that he attracted a deportation order in 2004 by then Levy Mwanawasa regime with his muwelewele catch phrase. Kalaki’s Thursday writings were hot cake and Zambians looked forward to that day that it drove sells up.
However, once the mighty Fred M’membe fell in love with the Cobra without making any policy pronouncements to anybody associated with the paper, the more objective ones found themselves trapped.
Kalaki for all the delayed payments he endured for his masterpieces hang on for a while but learnt that goal posts had shifted and he could not critique the Sata crowd and therefore Kalaki opted out but his writings are still a big hit in various media where they are spread.
Neo Simutanyi: His crime was to question the authenticity of an opinion poll The Post endorsed that had put Michael Sata in the lead prior to the 2008 presidential by-election.
M’membe attempted to arm twist Simutanyi into endorsing the poll in his popular Monday column but the then UNZA don refused to render his signature to a stage managed poll. With that he was thrown out the door.
Laura Miti: One of those who had won over hordes of readers not just for her wit and sting in her Saturday column but also few were happy to have one of the ladyfolk being the barometer of the male dominated political landscape.
Many looked forward to her column but she too learnt the hard way that The Post ship that had been the banner of independent journalism associated with luminaries such as Lucy Sichone had changed course.
It was particularly decreed never to write venomous commentaries about the King Cobra and his party. At least Miti had not lost her memory of the anti- or is it truthful commentary about The Cobra that The Post had fed the Zambians in the run up to the 2006 elections that Levy Mwanawasa narrowly won.
She too, like many level headed Zambians, had not forgetten how for weeks on end M’membe helped Zambians understand what a demagogue Sata was, a thug, tribalist, unprincipled man among the many terms M’membe used to decribe Sata.
The list goes on and on, all you get these days for columns with the exception of Edem Djokotoes’ Soul to Soul and Mind Over Matter, are a series of googled research papers for one fellowship or the other notwithstanding the quality or lack thereof in The Post nowadays.
One needs only to look at the heaps of the returns every day at the close of business BUT thanks to the business deals the PF is giving The Post off newspaper business at least they can cushion the plummeted sales.
And now their vendors get a reduced percentage if their return is higher BUT what can the poor vendors do? The wiser ones have defected to either The Zambia Daily Mail or Daily Nation that seem a safer bet for improved sells and commission on their part.
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