Maravi

Learn to carry your own cross

Learn to carry your own cross
By Editor
Wednesday January 30, 2008 [03:00]

It is always noble for one to accept responsibility for one’s own statements or deeds. It is not noble, just or fair to blame others for one’s failures and the consequences thereof. There is a tendency in this country, especially among our politicians, to blame others, the media, for their own self-created problems.

When they speak carelessly and their statements attract a backlash, they want the media to be responsible for that and take the heat. They accuse the media of misquoting them, of inaccuracies, sensation and unprofessional conduct, among other things.

Like a Swahili adage states, we would like to advise our politicians not to put blame on the darkness if they bump into a pole. If they knowingly go into a dangerous situation, they should not be surprised if they get hurt.

It is ludicrous for information minister Mike Mulongoti to suggest that we sensationalised, for the sake of making profit and hurting him, his statement last week that those who have not subscribed to pay television could watch the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations tournament from neighbours, taverns or bars.

For the benefit of those who did not read Mulongoti’s statement, when he was approached last Thursday by our journalist Lambwe Kachali for clarifications after he delivered a ministerial statement in Parliament explaining why the government was unable to assist ZNBC with K5 billion to enable it to televise the matches from Ghana, Mulongoti advised Zambians to watch the ongoing continental soccer tournament from bars or neighbours who subscribe to pay television channels because the government has no money to facilitate that through ZNBC.

He said the government’s failure to financially support ZNBC to broadcast the African Cup of Nations matches was because there were other pressing needs, like helping people who had been affected by this year's floods.

Mulongoti said: "Sport is not a matter of life and death. People are watching through DStv, GTV and for those who don't have those facilities should watch from their neighbours, taverns and bars. The government's priority now is to mitigate the sufferings of the people in flood areas because the implication of that is that we must also start to prepare their future because the floods have destroyed crops and roads. So, any little resource should go towards those areas.”

Mulongoti said people would laugh at the government if flood victims died and yet money was being spent to broadcast soccer matches.

And this is what we reported him as having said. But because a lot of people phoned him trying to clarify whether or not he was encouraging people to go to the bars to drink or he made the statement with malice, Mulongoti found it easier to accuse The Post of lacking sensitivity when reporting on serious national matters, of sensation and reporting things out of context just to gain profit and hurt people’s feelings.

Mulongoti further says the media should exercise maximum restraint and responsibility when reporting on such sensitive national matters; otherwise the government would be forced to come up with laws regulating media operations and also to ensure that those who practised journalism had the necessary qualifications.

This is the way politicians would like to abuse the law in order to hide their own inefficiencies, iniquities and transgressions. This is the way politicians would like to use repressive press laws to shield themselves from public scrutiny and therefore avoid checks and balances.

For a long time, successive governments have laboured, though in vain, to scheme something nasty against the media and its practitioners. The most common excuse they give, which they think can easily be bought by the public, is that the media is invaded by unqualified people. Justice minister George Kunda is one of those who have consistently pushed this line for quite some time.

But we have argued and encouraged our people to realise that journalism can draw upon other professions for its practitioners, including accountants, medical doctors and lawyers like Kunda who even once enjoyed writing a weekly column for this newspaper.
Going by Mulongoti’s absurd justification for his call for government’s regulation of media operations, it is clear that he doesn’t want a free and independent media to expose his inconsistencies, failures, iniquities and absurdity. We remember not long ago, Mulongoti was advising us not to accompany, with an editorial comment, any story exposing ministers or senior government officials’ shortcomings or transgressions. In Mulongoti’s wisdom, accompanying such stories with editorial comments would be tantamount to inciting the President to dismiss the affected ministers or government officials.

Clearly, it is not difficult to discern that those advocating for the government to regulate media operations do not mean well. They are more concerned about preserving themselves at the expense of public good. But in a democracy like ours, the thought of statutory media regulations should not even cross the minds of progressive people. We have stated before that in democratic societies, media freedom should be guaranteed by the fact that the industry should be allowed to regulate itself within the limits of acceptable libel laws.

Publishers, editors or journalists on newspapers should be given the freedom to draw up their own codes of ethics in order to protect their independence from undue pressures from other forces. It should also be remembered that journalistic codes should not be for the purpose of protecting those who hold public office from scrutiny.
Instead of scheming to frustrate democratic ideals and liberties such as freedom of the press and that of free speech, the government should concentrate on removing bad laws from our statute books.

On our part, we look at media ethics in terms of our ability to stick to the key canons or standards of the profession. We believe that we have been ethical in our work by insisting only on the truth, accuracy, impartiality and fairness as outlined in our mission statement. We also believe that we have been ethical by insisting on the independence of our work from all forms of vested external interests, including those in government like Mulongoti and others. We have been responsible in our work not to any one interested party but to the wider society and public good. Those who are objective will have no difficulties in agreeing with us on this score. That is why we are proud that we have continued to adhere to questions of moral decency and good taste of the contents of our newspaper on a daily basis.

This is not to suggest that we operate like angels, with no mistakes. We do make mistakes. And when this happens, we learn from those mistakes with a view to making improvements to our work every day. We have no problems at all acknowledging our mistakes, apologising and promptly correcting them. And looking at the work we have done over the years, we can confidently say we have performed our duties with sufficient honour and integrity. Looking at all this, we are confident that issues of ethical conduct do not affect us in the way suggested by Mulongoti. However, we are aware that people with empty schemes have always targeted us for allegations of unethical or unprofessional conduct. But we take heart in realising that the general populace see what we do on a daily basis and we think that these will be our best judges.

We therefore advise Mulongoti to learn to meet the temerity of his words and actions and not to smear filth on innocent people. Let him carry his own cross, we have our own Calvary.

Labels: MIKE MULONGOTI, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 3:21 AM