Maravi

The media isn’t there to fight govt – Hickey

The media isn’t there to fight govt – Hickey
Written by Masuzyo Chakwe
Thursday, October 08, 2009 5:02:15 PM

RADIO Phoenix chairman and proprietor Errol Hickey has said the media is not there to fight the government. And Hickey announced that he will retire from Radio Phoenix next year because he is tired. During a press briefing yesterday, Hickey said the media wanted to work with the government and not fight.

“Wherever there is something going on, you will find one of us. You are very, very important people. What you are doing is disseminating information to people. The media are the conduit between whatever is happening, be it in government, if it's in a village whatever, you are there to supply the information. I have been quiet now for a very long, long time, but no one holds us in respect any more. We have been beaten up, we are being insulted, we are being threatened and really when these things happen, where do you actually go to? Where can you go to? Where? You can't,” Hickey said.

“We had a fire in 1996, the whole station burnt down, nobody could come and help us but The Post did, Fred M'membe came up and said 'listen Errol we don't have much to offer you but we can give you something' and he gave us a donation to help us.”

He said with the small donation from The Post, they purchased tape recorders and whatever they could get.

“When you run into trouble today, where do you go? You don't have an association that you can do anything with. It is now time that you thought about yourselves. It is time you thought about getting some sort of organization that can protect you, Sky FM is sitting here today. He has had problems, where can he go to? Nowhere, there is nowhere he can go to. For years and years we have all been panicking and running in the dark, it is really now time to think about an association that can help us when we have a problem,” he said.

Hickey said if the Norwegian government had not helped then when the station was gutted in 1996, there would be no station today.

“We lost everything, everything was lost, we had no insurance. I threw the towel in and I thought that is the end,” he said.

He said while he was progressing in his journalism career, he got his background from seasoned journalists who are no longer in the media industry currently.

Hickey asked who was providing that for the current crop of journalists.

“These people are still here. They are in different organisations, professional people, who can teach, no one has approached them,” he said.

He said today there were situations where everybody was fighting.

Hickey said there was an article in the newspaper recently where the minister was threatening to close down the station.

“Many years ago when we started Radio Phoenix, the Chiluba government gave us the frequencies to go into the Copperbelt, there was no problems, we are now in four of the nine provinces. I got complaints from people in the South that why are you just going one way and we want to have your station. And I thought about this for many years and there were still many complaints coming in. And I thought now, our signal is now reaching Mazabuka and some people can pick it up, I am going to strengthen the signal a little bit,” he said. “There were so many complaints, yes, it was illegal, we put another small transmitter in Mazabuka and at least the people started listening to us. I know it was wrong but I did it because the people there had requested that. Last week Communications Authority confiscated the transmitter. I am sorry I am wrong, I put the transmitter for the people. I am sorry they are not able to receive the information they want. I want to publicly say that I am sorry.”

He said for years, they had applied for frequencies to get the signal to Mazabuka and the intention was not for monetary gain.

Hickey said the station does not get any encouragement from the government even after offering to work with them.

“We are not against the government in any way. The radio station was actually set up for the people,” he said.

He said the radio station had been trying for months to get government officials to appear on a programme that airs on Sunday with a view to give a platform to the government but it had been impossible.

Hickey said Radio Phoenix wanted to engage the government so that they know that they were not enemies and the station was there for development.

“And if only the government can understand that because we are always looked upon with suspicion and that we are wrong and we are doing this and that. We are non-partisan. We try to play the role as evenly as possible, it's a level playing field,” he said.

Hickey said on the controversial Let the people talk, the radio station always tried to balance the programme.

“We are not here to castigate and get people on the station and allow them to insult people like what's happening every day. We are not prepared to go that way, that's not the idea of the station. It's to inform the people what is going on,” he said.

Hickey said the government had been offered an opportunity to explain to the people on the developments in the country.

“That's all they want to hear, we want to work with the government, we don't want to fight with the government. We need some sort of respect, the things they do to some of the friends in the media, it's not fair. You can't beat up a person because they are doing their job. What is that person there for? He's there to do a job. You get the news and that's the idea, sometimes news is not so good and it affects people but really I think it's high time we got together and talked about these things. There is no dialogue. Nobody talks to anybody about the media,” he said.

He said the station had been successful in the past 13 years and it was not there to fight with anyone.

“We are here to work with the government as much as we can and we are sorry that we put a transmitter in Mazabuka but we thought it was needed and I am sorry. All I am saying is that why can't we work together. There was an issue recently when Sky FM was broken into. Who could we turn to for help? Nobody.

“So I was just thinking that next year I am pulling out, I’m in actual fact retiring,” he said.

Hickey said he had asked the media to attend the briefing so that they could take over if they had such plans.

He said he wanted the station to stay in the same vein and be the people's station.

Hickey said he would be very hurt if the vision of the station was lost.

He said there was a possibility that he could say no to the government if they offered to buy the station.

“I think it's actually time I retired, I have had enough. All I am asking for the media and the government work together instead of hammering each other every other week. The other thing for everything we have done, we are quite surprised in fact, The Post has been commended for their story in Cuba. In all my time we have never ever been commended for anything, nor has anybody else and that gives one an incentive. If you are commended for a job, you can say so, it doesn't mean that if it is only the government media or private media or any media that they have done a good job and they must be commended for it and the government must be proud of it. And if we can get our signals to all the people if we are allowed to get to all the people I think that is the way we should go. That's all the people want from us,” he said.

Hickey urged the government to appear on the Radio Phoenix programme, which he said was not live because people wanted to know what going on.

Hickey said the Information and Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Act had been dragging for a long time and yet in other countries, electronic media were allowed to broadcast anywhere.

Labels: ERROL HICKEY, MEDIA, RADIO PHOENIX

posted by MrK @ 4:03 PM