Maravi

Barclays' banking on the media

Barclays' banking on the media
By Editor
Monday August 11, 2008 [04:00]

HOW the forces of democratic governance and a civil society interact is the challenge we face and have to work through as a continuing and dynamic process in our efforts to build a prosperous democratic Zambia. There is an old saying that freedom and order are constantly in tension with one another in society. Order without freedom leads to totalitarianism. Freedom without order leads to anarchy.

It is also said that societies recover more quickly and healthily from too much freedom than they do from totalitarianism.

If all this sounds too abstract, let us then say it in simpler terms. We are responding to a remark made by Barclays managing director for southern African region Zafar Masud over the weekend in Livingstone.

Masud praised the Zambian media as being well disciplined and very professional, bringing out both the bad things and the good things and at the same time following high ethical standards.

He wished journalists from other countries could learn from our ethics. Masud says he regards accountability and journalism as the two most important ingredients for national development. We thank him for his very generous compliments.

This is a thankless undertaking and it's rare to receive such compliments, especially from corporate executives.

We would hope that the media in Zambia developed a greater professional integrity and responsibility. We should be critical guardians of democracy and freedom, but at the same time respect our audience, the targets of our criticism and reporting, and above all else our own integrity as a social institution.

In the end, it demeans all of us in society if one picks up a newspaper and disbelieves its stories at the start, waiting for further proof before one gives credence to it. Or, if one detects basic flaws in stories and reports that could have been easily corrected by good basic journalism and editing.

Zambia should put the freedom of its press and media at the top of its priorities as a country aspiring to be a democracy. And as Masud has correctly observed, "accountability and journalism are the two most important ingredients for national development".

The freedom of the press and its inalienable right to be our critic and mirror should be under no threat in our country.

However, we think it is part of the democratic process that our people and their leaders can take vigorous issue with the media when they regard it as appropriate, without that in any way implying a right on their part to infringe on the freedom of the press.

We say this because as we have been correctly advised before, "none of our irritations with the perceived inadequacies of the media should ever allow us to even suggest faintly that the independence of the press could be compromised or coerced...a bad free press is preferable to a technically good subservient press".

We should instead do everything possible to ensure that journalism of quality plays its role in the future of our country, our democracy.

We cannot predict the future, but we must never give way to the temptation to be the standard-bearers of a people who yearn for democracy, for a plural and open society but renounce the efforts, the struggles and the standards that go with it.

A lot of tolerance and sacrifice is required. We should have no illusions, nor should we have a right to believe, that a democratic society, an open society, a more just, fair and humane nation - for which it is our duty to struggle - will be established in this country without serious effort, struggles on the part of our people.

We have a title to the future, and our future will be the one we ourselves are capable of creating.

And in such efforts, let's keep in mind the fact that no human being has exceptional merits and we can all learn great lessons every day from the most humble people.

For better or worse, as long as this country continues to aspire to be an open society, a democratic nation, a free people, a free government and a free press - are going to be stuck with each other.

For Zambia to grow and prosper, ideas must be nourished through free discussion. A bad idea, like a bad newspaper, will find few takers in the market place.

A strong, free country and a strong free press are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other. No nation ever has, and none will. We believe an independent and plural press will help promote full and free discussion in our country.

Full and free discussion keeps society from becoming stagnant and unprepared for the stresses and strains that work to tear all its achievements to pieces.

However, for full and free discussion, one needs a vigorous, flourishing, pluralistic press not merely as an extension of the government's public relations machinery with a mission to educate the "uninformed masses" about development programmes and what their government claims to be doing to help them, but as an independent entity.

Continued media dominance by our government does not only undermine the development of our multiparty democracy but also weakens the pillars upon which it should stand - free press and free speech.

Press freedom is not meant to protect the government from critics. It is meant to protect people from government, not government from people.

A free press which is capable of checking the arrogance and abuses of government is essential to our democratisation process. We say this because informed public opinion is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment.

To some people, reporting on the characters and conduct of political leaders is seen as irresponsible journalism. Our people have a divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, we mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.

This being the case, then we think the best newspaper is probably the one seen to be the most irresponsible by people who look at things in that way.

In such a situation we feel as soon as our press begins to try to be seen to be responsible in the eyes of such people, it suffocates itself under the blankets of its worst pretensions.

Imagine if all the printers were determined not to print anything until they are sure it would offend nobody - there would be very little printed. The whole point of a free press is not to make the policies and actions of the government exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

There should actually be a provision in our constitution guaranteeing the right of the people to criticise truthfully the conduct of their public servants, and that this right should not be taken away in any way by any law.

Press freedom is a farce if it means merely the freedom to report pleasant things.

Inaccuracies, and other deficiencies in our media, can be overcome or minimised through training and retraining of our journalists.

And lastly, it must be appreciated that an independent newspaper has two incentives: to promote the general welfare and to make money. But like a private hospital, it must be more concerned with the good that it does.

Every man or woman should have an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he or she pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press; but if he or she publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he or she must take the consequences of his or her own temerity.

And we hope Masud, who says he regards accountability and journalism as the two most important ingredients for national development, will accordingly recognise this fact in his bank's day-to-day dealings with the media because the media, like all other businesses and institutions, also needs financing, needs capital. This is the only way Barclays Bank can bank on the media as an important ingredient for national development.

Labels: BARCLAYS BANK

posted by MrK @ 4:24 AM