A year after President Michael Sata was elected in Zambia on promises to improve media freedom, his Patriotic Front party is patting itself on the back while some media workers remain sceptical about just how far the country has come.

“My government’s agenda on the media is to ensure that it continuously challenges government to serve the people of Zambia better,” Zambian President Michael Sata said during a Sept. 21 speech at the opening session of Parliament. “To achieve this, my government has, in the last 12 months, embarked on a wide range of policy interventions.”

Patriotic Front officials promised last year to free the public media from government control, accept a self-regulatory mechanism for the media and pass a Freedom of Information Act.

“We have removed government controls on public media so that they carry out their role of informing, educating and entertaining the public freely and professionally,” said Sata. “Even our colleagues in the opposition are now happy beneficiaries of this open policy of my government.”

So how do journalists rate the government’s performance? IPI spoke with a number of reporters and press freedom advocates, who said that while some steps have been made in the right direction, progress has been slower than expected. And some fear that despite its proclamations, the government is trying to keep a leash on free speech.

Self-Regulation

When it comes to the media council, the government deserves due praise for upholding its promise to support voluntary self-regulation. The Zambia Media Council (ZAMEC), a voluntary self-regulatory body that has been in the works for years, was finally launched in July 2012. The previous government had crippled efforts to start the body by threatening to prevent the public media from participating. Since government-owned media employ some two-thirds of all Zambian journalists, its non-participation would have threatened the body’s legitimacy and financial independence.

The Sata government seems to have accepted ZAMEC. Patson Phiri, executive secretary of the Press Association of Zambia, who previously worked for the state-owned newspaper Times of Zambia, said preparations to operationalize ZAMEC are “going well,” with members preparing for an annual general assembly that should adopt a final version of the ZAMEC constitution and code of ethics.

Nalumino Nalumino, the acting chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s (MISA) Zambian branch, is happy with progress. “This government came to power and within a year they allowed the media to regulate themselves without statute,” he told IPI. “There hasn’t been a directive, such as from the previous government, that says public media should not be part of ZAMEC. It would be a futile exercise to allow ZAMEC to exist and deny their participation.”

Public media

In terms of freeing from government oversight the Zambian National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) and the two publically-owned dailies, the Times of Zambia and the Daily Mail, journalists were less impressed with government progress.

According to journalists IPI spoke with, there is today a general lack of strong media that independently scrutinize government policy.

The overall sense is that it used to be expected, if not totally accepted, that the government-owned newspapers would not criticize or scrutinize too closely the actions of the ruling party and its officials. To balance that there was the very strong newspaper The Post, which, as one unnamed source who has worked for government-owned media put it, “spoke very fearlessly about certain excesses of government.” But the paper formerly known as the raging vanguard of anti-ruling party sentiment is now perceived by most journalists IPI spoke to as being favourable to the ruling Patriotic Front.

Of course, privately-owned media are entitled to their editorial positions. Government-owned media, on the other hand, should serve the public in accordance with internationally accepted principles, such as those laid out in the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa, which were adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2002.

The Declaration states, among other things, that “State and government controlled broadcasters should be transformed into public service broadcasters, accountable to the public through the legislature rather than the government,” in accordance with the principles that “public broadcasters should be governed by a board which is protected against interference, particularly of a political or economic nature” and that “the editorial independence of public service broadcasters should be guaranteed.”

With respect to the government-owned newspapers, the Declaration states that “Any print media published by a public authority should be protected adequately against undue political interference.”

Various Zambian governments have historically said they would free the public broadcaster from government oversight, but to no avail. In 2002, two laws were passed that would put control of broadcast licensing in the hands of an Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and make ZNBC a truly public broadcaster, in which the journalists at the station are able to work independently of any political oversight. However, the ZNBC Act and the IBA Act were never fully implemented, and in April 2010, both were amended to allow the information minister to appoint the ZNBC and IBA boards without relying on nominations from expert appointments committees – a step backwards, in the view of press freedom defenders.

In fact, the current government has said that the public media is now free to report objectively. In June, former Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services, Fackson Shamenda, announced that the public media had been “decontrolled, deregulated and depoliticized,” according to a MISA report published in July this year.

But MISA noted that stating that the public media is free is not the same as making it free. “[A]lthough there is to a degree some level of freedom at public media entities, there was need for government to back the pronouncements with progressive laws,” MISA said, and called on parliament to reinstate the law requiring board members at the regulatory body and the public broadcaster to be nominated by an appointments board.

“There is a law that was passed that was meant to turn the ZNBC into a truly national broadcaster, a truly public broadcaster, and the expectation of that bill was that the board of directors would be appointed by an independent group and not the government, [but] the government has gone ahead to appoint the chief executives of all the public media,” Phiri told IPI.

Under the ZNBC Act, a board is supposed to appoint the director general and a number of other managers. But the Patriotic Front (PF) government did it in reverse. In March 2012, a new director general of the ZNBC was announced, but it was only in July that a list of ZNBC board members was sent to parliament for ratification, according to news reports.

The same thing is said to have happened at the public newspapers. The editor of the Zambian Watchdog news website from outside the country, gave his take on the situation: “Well, when the PF came to power, the first thing was to fire all the media heads of Times [of Zambia], Daily Mail and ZNBC, and there were political appointees by the minister of information. Six months later, they (the PF) have appointed a board to run the newspapers, but after employing the managing editors. So now the question is, the managing editor, who does he report to? The board or the minister who appointed him? So there is this conflict that the board answers the minister, and the editor answers to the minister.”

One broadcast journalist, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, told IPI that the current government’s stance on public media is to be expected: “The ZNBC Act is law but remains unimplemented. […] It’s an issue of trying to preserve your power, by using the public media as a tool for propaganda. I think it applies to all the political parties – when they come into government they change their stance.”

Public newspapers

The government has promised to bolster the independence of the Times of Zambia and the Daily Mail by selling 35 percent of its shares in the two dailies.

The last government’s policy, which was never implemented, was to sell the newspapers to private investors, whereas the current government wants to sell some shares and keep some as well, Phiri of PAZA explained. However, action has been limited. “There has been an intention by the government to sell shares so that members of the public can be shareholders in the public media, and reduce the authority that the government has on them,” he said. “That has been a policy announcement, but there hasn’t been any tangible movement.”

Nalumino of MISA said: “Public media owe their existence to the public and not the politicians or the government, and it would be in the best interest of this country if the public media would be privatized.” In a statement in early July, MISA Zambia called for government to sell a larger share of the state-owned papers – 65 percent – to bolster their independence. Nalumino said, “The government has indicated it would privatize. All we are interested is to know the roadmap. What is the timeframe, and those are things that the Zambian government can better explain.”

Not surprisingly, the government-owned media continue to report positively on President Sata and his party, much as they reported positively about the former government and ruling party before. Journalists had differing views as to whether anything has really changed, despite the rhetoric.

Nalumino believes the PF has given its permission for journalists to be objective. “If the public media has failed to report objectively, it’s because they themselves are exercising self-censorship […] The onus is on the public media to come out of the shell of selective reporting.”

Not all agree. The news website of the Zambian Watchdog implied that there is a climate of fear because several journalists were “retired” from public media for being “too independent” or close to the previous government. The editor told IPI: “The government has fired up to 16 journalists from the government media: those who are suspected of not supporting the government […] We can only assume that this is politics, because those reporters didn’t apply for leave for retirement, they didn’t commit any offence, they just received letters of separation.”

One journalist who has worked for public media said that journalists who criticize the ruling party are at risk of losing their jobs. (It is worth noting that journalists made similar comments about life at the public media under the last government, as well).

Davis Mataka is the former deputy managing director of the state-owned Zambia Daily Mail, and was one of the first to lose his job under the new government. Although this is perhaps not totally shocking, given his reputation of doggedly promoting the former ruling party while he was at the newspaper and, before that, at the Times of Zambia.

But beyond his dismissal, which he seemed to find unsurprising, Mataka said he was troubled by the “indiscriminate firing of young and versatile journalists.

“I think over eight or 10 promising journalists were fired on the pretext that it’s a downscaling exercise…The truth of the matter on the ground is that there seems to be a purging exercise for whoever is perceived to be ‘pro’ the previous regime. Why do I say so? These journalists were replaced by those perceived to be supportive of the PF government.”

He also complained that he and others who were meant to have received severance packages have not yet been fully paid out. “I’m a victim of this laissez faire attitude by those entrusted with this affair. My quick thought is that maybe […] President Sata may not even be aware of the state of affairs.”

The debate on public media hiring practices has become political. Last week, in response to a question from an opposition politician, Information and Broadcasting Deputy Minister Mwansa Kapeya reportedly told parliament that “no employee was sacked” after last year’s election; rather, “some Journalists [sic] at the two institutions, including other professionals, were separated from their employer, some were retired, some had their contracts terminated while some opted to go on voluntary separation,” according to the government news agency ZANIS.

Mataka, who was privy to the workings of public media under the last government, believes there is no difference between the state of affairs now and then. “There’s nothing different, it’s business as usual,” he told IPI. He said that while government control does not extend to the “day-to-day content,” the overall structures are bound to result in an excessively close relationship between government-owned media and the Information Ministry.

“The [permanent secretary of the information ministry] sits on the boards of these newspapers, for example at the Daily Mail, and is looking at interests of government. And whoever sits on the board is appointed by the same government, and you expect them to have divergent views?” he scoffed. “You definitely don’t expect them to say anything out of the box. So in that regard these newspapers, the Zambia Daily Mail, the Times of Zambia, will remain controlled. It is under this premise – and we understood that very clearly.”

He added: “I should hasten to say that as long as [the structure] remains the same, they’ll never be truly independent. I’ll tell you something. I’ve worked in the public media for close to 20 years – and that talk about privatising was there even when I started as a cub reporter. It has been through all the governments – they just keep talking. I don’t see it coming through.”

Freedom of Information

Passage of a freedom of information law was a central tenet of the Patriotic Front’s election campaign, as the law’s absence is a long-standing gripe of press freedom defenders in the country. As Phiri explained, giving citizens the right to access government information would help in the fight against corruption. “[T]here have been high levels of corruption in the last decade, and basically […] people believe it’s because the information is held by government in secrecy, and is labelled confidential. This is the information that would allow citizens to press government for information as to how much has been spent on different projects.” Phiri said experts should be able to compare the value of projects with the amount of money spent on them, to aid in the fight against corruption.

The PF manifesto (PDF) promised that if elected the ruling party, it would “[R]eview and reconcile the provisions of the Official Secrets Act and the Freedom of Information Bill of 2002 in order to enact the Freedom of Information Bill of 2002 into law.”

After the election, in October 2011, Information Minister Given Lubinda pledged his party’s support for full implementation of that promise: “Talking about Freedom of Information laws; that I can assure you. And I am going to discuss with his honour the vice-president, and hopefully through him, His Excellency the president, that we make the FoI as one of our benchmarks within the first 90 days of the PF government,” The Post newspaper quoted Lubinda as saying.

A year later, no FOI law is in place. However, there do seem to be moves in that direction. Phiri told IPI: “We remain confident […] because the PS [Permanent Secretary] and the Minister of Information have actually approached [the Press Association of Zambia] to give comments on the law in order that the government can implement and take the bill on access to information to parliament.”

Nalumino explained that the bill is currently with the justice minister, who will amend it as he sees fit before returning it to the parliament for a vote. “Our view is that it’s important for all stakeholders to have sight of whatever changes might come through that process, so that there’s further debate as to whether the changes are taking anything away from the spirit of Freedom of Information, or whether it’s augmenting,” he said.

Journalists now hope that the current session of parliament will pass an FOI bill – now named the Access to Information (ATI) bill – into law.

Threats to government critics

Some journalists IPI spoke with seemed fearful for not only their careers, but their well-being. Those fears are perhaps not entirely unwarranted in a country where insulting the national anthem or defaming the president carry prison terms. In May, for example, a civil servant was sentenced to three months in prison with hard labour because he “with intent did bring the name of the President into hatred and ridicule did utter defamatory words against the Head of State during a drinking spree,” the ZANIS news agency reported.

President Sata has not hesitated to bring expensive lawsuits against media houses that published or broadcast opposition views that the president found defamatory and libellous. For instance, earlier this year the President sued the owners of the upstart Daily Nation weekly newspaper and the Zambian Watchdog for defamation. According to the editor of the Watchdog, the media houses had reprinted a statement by Hakainde Hichilema, head of an opposition party, in which he claimed that the president was protecting friends from a judicial decision. (Hichelema was also sued). The case is still in court, and damages are to be set by the court, the editor told IPI. Sata also sued the Daily Nation and Hichilema for reports alleging that a contract to rebuild State House had been awarded in a corrupt manner.

In another instance, the President sued Hichilema, and Hot FM radio station for allegedly defamatory remarks that the opposition leader made on a live program in April, reports say. The President is claiming K500 million (approx. €75,000.00) each from the station and Hichilema, according to a report in the Zambian Watchdog.

Officials have also threatened media houses with closure. Most recently, the permanent secretary at the Information Ministry, Amos Malupenga, threatened to revoke the license of a radio station affiliated with the University of Zambia (UNZA). As IPI documented, Malupenga accused the station of biased political coverage and of broadcasting beyond its allowed radius. Officials later came and physically exchanged the station’s transmitter for a smaller one.

Mutale Macpherson, an official at UNZA radio, told IPI that the ministry “has actually decided to bring down the transmission power for all the community radio to about 500 watts,” claiming the stations had erroneously been issued 1000-watt licenses.

Charles Mafa, who works for the Catholic Media Services network of broadcast stations, recalled that with respect to community radio: “During the campaigns they said they would allow as many stations as possible.”

Mataka, who is now in the process of establishing a newspaper called Zambian Confidential, also expressed reservations about whether the government’s actions match its rhetoric when it comes to promoting the creation of new media houses. “I know the PF government prides itself on allowing the registration of new TV stations and radio but, you see, there have been complaints coming form people out there that only those owners of publications that are pro-government are receiving these licenses – so it’s important that government clear the air because there are a lot of questions as regards the same,” he said.

Mataka added that a couple of months ago he, too, was the victim of government harassment. “The moment I announced I was putting up this newspaper, issues were brought against me about one or two matters dating from when I was a public servant,” he said. “State agents were sent to my premises, I was searched […] My project was sent in disarray because my cooperating partners were estranged, and so I had to start from zero. So those are some of the challenges.”

A May report on the Zambia Reports website says Mataka was investigated for allegedly leading the production of two anti-Patriotic Front newspapers, Stand up for Zambia and The Zambian, that appeared during last year’s campaign season. Zambia Reports quoted an anonymous interrogator who said: “Mataka is likely to be arrested and charged with the offence of abuse of office because the state believes Mataka received colossal amounts of money to run the publications.”

At least one weekly newspaper with an anti-government stance, the Daily Nation, began operation in early 2012 – although it has been the target of at least four defamation lawsuits in the intervening months.

Threats have also been made against online news websites, notably the Zambian Watchdog. An article on the Zambia Reports website, which, like the Watchdog, takes a very critical stance, reported that “President Sata, Foreign Affairs Minister Given Lubinda, Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba, Tourism Minister Sylvia Masebo, Defence Minister Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba and Information Permanent Secretary Amos Malupenga have all openly come out strong against the Zambian Watchdog and online media.”

Zambia Reports reported in July that Mwamba warned the Zambian Watchdog to retract articles about President Sata’s health or the PF would “sort them out.”

This week, the Office of Registrar of Societies, operating under the Ministry of Home Affairs, published a series of advertisments a government-owned newspaper warning that the Zambian Watchdog could be de-registered because “the office bearers have failed or deliberately neglected to remit statutory fees and inform the Registrat of Societies about the status of the society.”

The editor of the Zambian Watchdog told IPI that the registrar must be referring to a forged registration, because the Watchdog is not a “society” (a non-profit non-governmental organization), and because the Watchdog actually registered as a company in 2002, not in 2004 as stated in the advertisement.

Chief Registrar Clemen Andeleki, in whose name the newspaper notice was published, told IPI that his office is going after the Watchdog because “They have been publishing material that has been false, but the people have no recourse [because the physical address given on the alleged registration is inaccurate].” He said: “We as a government have a responsibility to protect the citizenry so there is law and order in the country.” In a prominent case earlier this year, the same office deregistered the former ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). After resolving outstanding issues, they were reregistered, Andeleki told IPI.

The Zambian Watchdog operates in exile because its editor faces charges of contempt of court and defaming the president that date back to 2010. The editor explained that “there’s no law regulating online publications, instead they consider them as part of the newspapers.” The Watchdog, the editor said, existed as a twice-monthly print publication from 2003 to 2006, but has been online-only for the past six years.

Some journalists have complained that reports on the Watchdog’s website are not always totally accurate, but defended its right to operate. Mafa said: “Despite the problems they might have, I don’t think it’s a good thing to threaten to close the Watchdog.”

Mafa said the verbal threats against the media “made people a little bit sceptical and doubtful as to whether the government is really committed [to press freedom].”

When asked to respond to accusations that his website is “biased”, the editor said: “We take [comments that the Watchdog is biased] to be an opinion, because we do not know what they mean by biased,” he said. “We are monitoring how government is using funds – the opposition may be there, but we don’t know where they get their funding, and they don’t affect what Zambians will eat tomorrow.”

Great expectations

The ruling party made sweeping promises on press freedom during the campaign and immediately after the election. With the exception of allowing the self-regulatory mechanism (which was established long before the election), the government has not met its stated goals of passing a Freedom of Information law and putting the public media under public control.

“The PF government is not being any different from the MMD government, which was also tough on certain private media organizations that gave air time to opposition parties,” an unnamed broadcast journalist said. “During campaigns they promised to give the media the freedom they need, but from these threats we’ve seen the same thing the MMD did in terms of stifling the media in Zambia.”

One glaring issue is control over the public media. “The Patriotic Front government has raised expectations in terms of what they intended to do – and that has not really happened to a level that people would have appreciated, […] especially as regards (to) efforts to turn the government media into a truly public media,” Phiri, the head of the Press Association, said. “That is one aspect where people are very expectant, because it was a hallmark of their campaign.”

If Zambian officials can give up the bad habits of their predecessors, such as making threats against the media, responding to criticism with lawsuits, treating critical journalists with vindictiveness, using the courts to punish criticism and controlling the public media, and if they not only pass but implement the Access to Information bill, the Zambian government may yet fulfil its promises.

President Sata’s government has talked the talk and, with its tabling of the ATI bill, it seems to be putting its shoes on to walk the walk. Whether it walks, and how fast and how far, remains to be seen.

Note: This article has been modified to protect the identity of a journalist who expressed concerns over his safety.