Acting Chief government spokesperson Fackson Shamenda has denied assertions suggesting that the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) still exerts political interference in the operations of the public media in the country.
This follows the latest observations by the Media Liaison Committee (MLC) which has suggested that all three public media, ZNBC, Times of Zambia and the Daily Mail are more inclined to giving coverage to the PF government than the opposition political parties.
Shamenda has however maintained that the PF government does not influence how the three public media institutions do their coverage of both the ruling party and the opposition.
Shamenda notes that the fact that ZNBC, Times of Zambia and Daily Mail have been perceived to be giving coverage to senior government officials more than they do to officials from the opposition, does not mean that ruling PF is being covered more than other political parties.
Shamenda has argued that the reason why the three media institutions may be observed to be giving more coverage to senior government officials, it is because government officials have a mandate to explain to the people the programs enshrined in the PF manifesto on which the country is being governed.
Shamenda adds that such a trend where public media institutions give more coverage to the government officials is not synonymous to Zambia alone as the public media in other countries such as the United States of America also do the same in terms of prioritizing coverage to the government.
On Sunday, the Media Liaison Committee (MLC) observed that nothing has changed in the operations of the public media in the country despite the Patriotic Front (PF) government’s promise of transforming the three institutions into true public media institutions.
Committee Chairperson Mickie Mumba observed that the same way the public media used to work with a lot of political influence under the reign of Movement for Multi Party Democracy (MMD) is the same way public media is still operating under the PF.
Mumba noted it is important for the PF government to realize the need to allow the public media to operate independently and thereby give equal and balance coverage to all interested parties who have currently been receiving limited coverage as compared to the coverage that the ruling PF is receiving.
Mumba added that there is need for the PF government to emulate other democratic government of other countries that do not interfere in the operations of the media.
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